* ^ * 







^«1 







































.To' A 






*• ^fv & *-f 






<-0 ♦ 



V * wv 







c«*..ii&/% 



* >°^. VgaR* * 4 °* '". 



P-7- 






> **S*\&* 



. »* A 



<* *'7Y 







^ 





















LETTER 



ON 



COLONIZATION, 



ADDRESSED TO THE 



REV. THORNTON J. MILLS, 



oF TH E KENTUCKY COLONIZATION 



RESPONDING SECRETARY 

SOCIETY 



„„„,„r:r »:"»— -- 



NE W-YORK-- 

143 Nassau Street, 
1838, 



£4-4 
■736 . 



t/ q 



LETTER 



OF 

JAMES G. BIRNEY, Esq 



The author of the following letter is a gentleman of education and 

out the South West as a devoted, exemplary, and influential Christ an 

On^umtoK^^^ 

Colonization Society. In 1832, he was appointed by the American Xolo 
nization Society their permanent agent, with a liberal salary, for Tennes 
™ Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas and he fai hfu ly la 
bourea in the cause. His writings were copied with approbation in the 
official magazine of the Soeiety. No man has a better knowledge of 
ot niza'on, and its practical effects at the south. Few covdd have mad 
greater sacrifices than he has done, by espousing advocating and pra* 
than- sentiments so obnoxious and unpopular as those of an Abolition- 
No document before the public on any subject exhibits greater abH- 
Such a man has a right to be heard, and his arguments should be 



sentiments so odiioxiuus aim «i. F ^»— . , . \ ,-, ■_ „, OQforf ,un 
ist » No document before the public on any subject exhibits greater ^abfl- 
£ Such a man has a right to be heard, and his r- 
weighed with respect by every citizen of this nation. 



To the Rev. Thornton J. Mills, Corresponding Secretary of 
th2 Kentucky Colonization Society. 

Sir :- At tne annual meeting of the « Kentucky Colonization 

Society" in January last, it pleased the members to elect me one 

oH 3 Vice Presidents. I am by no means insensible to the favor- 

able op nion, which placed me in company with such able and 

honorable associates : but I should be unworthy of it, and want- 

^ in respect to the officers and members, did I not frankly nvow, 

hat my opinions of colonization, in some of its most essential 

features, have undergone a change, so great, as to make it im- 

Mntoewmenolwgertogive to the enterprise that support 

md favor which are justly expected from all connected with it 

In leaving my station, it is due to the gentlemen with whom I 



4 JA3. G. BIRNEY'S LETTER. 

have been associated, as well as to myself, that I should at least 
give some of the reasons which have persuaded me to this course. 
That all the grounds necessary for an impartial and intelligent 
judgment may be exhibited, I think it not unimportant to state, 
though very briefly, the relation in which I have, for many years, 
stood to the cause of colonization. Although a native of Ken- 
tucky, I resided for fifteen years previously to last autumn, in the 
state of Alabama. It was in the year 1826, not very 'ong after 
the publication of the "African Repository" was begun, at a 
time' when little had been said, at least in the West and South- 
west, on the subject of colonization, that it first arrested my at- 
tention. I considered it, and I doubt not by very many of those 
who gave it their early support it was intended; as a scheme of 
benevolence to the whole colored population, and as a germ of 
effort capable of expansion adequate to our largest necessities in 
the extermination of slavery. It was on the 4th of July of this 
year, that, uniting my own to the contributions of other gentle- 
men and ladies privately solicited by myself, I was enabled to 
send on to the Treasurer of the" American Colonization Society" 
the first collection of money, so far as my information extends, 
that was made for its purposes in Huntsville, the place of my 
residence. If I remember accurately, collections were afterwards 
taken up, and the subject presented to the congregation from the 
pulpit for several successive 4ths of July, in the church I attended 
In the summer of 1832, I received from the Secretary of the 
American Colonization Society a letter announcing to me my ap 
pointment as its general Agent for the district composed of Ten 
ncssee, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas. The 
compensation to be received for my services, though far inferior 
to the avails of my professional labors, was altogether liberal. 
It was, indeed, as much as I would have demanded, in the exist- 
ing state of the society's means, had it been left to me to fix the 
amount. After taking such time as I thought necessary for de 
liberation in a matter so nearly touching my private interest, 
against the advice of nearly all my friends I consented to under- 
take the agency ; so strongly was I impelled by the belief that it 
was a great work of philanthropy to which I was summoned, 
and that it could even in the South, be conducted to eminent suc- 
cess, especially when undertaken by one of her own citizens 
(himself from boyhood a slaveholder) who could bring to the aid 
of prudence and a sound character only moderate qualifications 
of talent and address. The claims of colonization I presented 
very fully at nearly all the important points in the district assign- 
ed me, with a zeal that was unchecked by ordinary obstacles, and 
with a success disproportioned to be sure to the sanguine expec 
tations with which I had set out, but not perhaps to the genuine 
merits of the cause. I have thought proper, thus, very cursorily, 



JAS. G. birney's letter. 5 

to refer to the circumstances mentioned above, not only to show- 
that I have been in a situation affording good opportunities to 
judge of the operation of the principles upon which colonization 
has been recommended and urged upon the public mind, but that 
I have been habitually friendly to it ; zealous in promoting its 
success, and therefore inclined to indulge toward it a favorable 
judgment. 

It might not, however, be improper further to add, that Mr. 
Polk of Washington arrived in Huntsvilleas Agent of the Ameri- 
can Colonization Society, in the end of 1829. After he had con- 
sulted with several of the most intelligent and philanthropic gen- 
tlemen of the place, together with myself, it was determined upon, 
in order to embody and excite to activity so much of public senti- 
ment as migbt be found favorable, to attempt the organization of 
an auxiliary Colonization Society. In this effort, successful 
beyond what had been looked for, I gave such aid as I was capa- 
ble of giving, by an address to the assembly favorable to the 
proposition. The society, thus organized, contained within it the 
very best materials the place afforded, and its reception by the 
community was, at first, encouraging beyond expectation.. 

This was the first instance of direct action in the South, for the 
benefit of any part of the colored population, of which 1 then had 
a personal knowledge. I was greatly encouraged at the favora- 
ble aspect of things on this, the first trial, for it was made in a 
town where, considering its size, there-is unusual concentration of 
intelligence, and in the very midst of a population numbering a 
majority of blacks. At that time, I believed there was in the 
project so much of a vivifying spirit, that to ensure success it was 
only necessary for the people of the South once to become inter- 
ested in it, that there was in it so much of the energy of life that 
it required nothing more than once to be set on foot, to put beyond 
all question its continuance and growth. As auxiliary to the im- 
pulses of benevolence, I calculated upon the selfish advantages to 
the South. These I thought, could be so clearly and powerfully 
exhibited, that there would be none to gainsay or resist, and thnt, 
by the union of benevolence and selfishness, the co-operation of 
the whole South might be secured. I unhesitatingly declare, that 
the total incongruity of these two principles did not sti .ke my 
mind as it has done, since I witnessed their dissociable and mutu- 
ally destructive energy. Of the truth of this remark, the Hunts- 
ville society will furnish good evidence, for notwithstanding its 
auspicious beginning, and the excitement of eloquent and animat- 
ing addresses, delivered, at different times, by gentlemen of distin- 
guished ability, it never was efficient, its excitability wore away 
as it advanced in age, and it protracted a languishing existence 
until last autumn, when, I apprehend, it terminated its being, 
except in name. 

1* 



t? JA3. G. BIRNEY'S LETTER. 

Other instances might be given tending to confirm the same re 
mark. Mr. Polk succeeded, under the most encouraging circum- 
stances, in organizing a State Society, at Tuscaloosa, the seat of 
government. It was whilst the Supreme Court, and the Legisla- 
ture of the state were in session. The most conspicuous gentle- 
men, members of the bar, bench, and of the general assembly, 
became members, and very many of them, if I mistake not, life 
members. This society, a year afterwards, held its regular 
meeting. The proceedings were somewhat of a dissentious, not 
to say disorderly character. It never met again. In 1832, I 
made an attempt, in the prosecution of my agency, to revive it, 
but its vitality was thoroughly expended. 

In New Orleans, as in Alabama, a colonization society had 
been formed a few years ago, consisting of more than eighty 
members; and including in that number many gentlemen of the 
highest distinction for private worth, intelligence and public in- 
fluence in the state. When I was there, last year, it was with 
great difficulty that some half dozen members could be assembled 
to transact any business connected with the advancement of the 
cause ; the expedition for Liberia just on the eve of sailing from 
that port, produced no friendly excitement; the vessel [Ajax] 
carrying out one hundred and fifty emigrants was permitted to 
loose from the levee, with do effort by the friends of colonization 
there, to produce the least throb of sympathy in the public mind ; 
and a city meeting of which due notice had been carefully given, 
failed utterly, in consequence of the absence or the fears of gen 
tlemen who had promised to participate in the public exercises 
I mention the institution of the society at Huntsville, and its de- 
cline, not for the purpose of giving its history as a matter of in- 
terest in itself, nor solely, with the view of showing my friendly 
disposition towards colonization ; but as an instance (to which 
the condition of the others mentioned, as well as that of all the 
smaller societies throughout the region in which I acted, might 
be added,) falling under my own observation, tending to demon- 
strate the truth of a proposition that every day's experience is 
making more palpable to my mind, that there is not in coloniza- 
tion any principle, or Duality, or constituent substance fitted so to 
tell upon the hearts and minds of men as to ensure continued and 
persevering action. If there be the connexion supposed, between 
the facts introduced above, and the proposition just stated, may 1 
not ask you, sir, if the little that has been done for colonization 
by our own state, where years ago it was welcomed with open 
arms, and within whose limits I could not state from personal 
knowledge that it has a single enemy, and the present crippled 
and unmoving condition of the numerous societies, auxiliary to 
that whose correspondence you so ably conduct, do not furnish 
testimony very powerful, if not irresistible, that the whole matter 



JAS. g. eirney's letter. 7 

has not in it any principle exciting to strenuous — to continuous 
action ? 

In stating the objections that exist in my mind to colonization, 
I wish it to be understood distinctly at the outset, that I do not, 
in the slightest degree, impute to the benevolent individuals by 
whom it was originated, or even to a large majority of those by 
whom it is still warmly cherished, any unworthy motive as 
prompting their zeal. Whilst I very cheerfully attribute to this 
majority stainless purity of motive in what they have done, and 
are doing ; and further, a strong persuasion, that it is the only 
means of rescue from the polluting and crushing folds of slavery ; 
I should be insincere, were I not to state my belief, that coloniza- 
tion, if not supported, is not objected to, by many a keen sighted 
slave holder in the abstract, who has perspicacity enough to dis- 
cern that the dark system in which he has involved himself, his 
posterity and their interests, will remain as unaffected by it, as 
mid-ocean by the discharge of a pop gun on the beach. 

Nor do I intend to be understood, as making any objection to 
the purpose of the American Colonization Society, as expressed 
in its constitution, "to promote a plan for colonizing {with their 
consent) the free people of color residing in our country, in 
Africa, or such other place as Congress may deem most expedi- 
ent." [fits operations be limited to the gratification of an intel 
ligent wish, on the part of the free people of color, or any other 
class of our population, to remove to Africa, with the view of es 
tablishing a colony for the prosecution of an honest commerce, 
or for any lawful purpose whatever, there could exist, so far as I 
can see, no reasonable ground of opposition, any more than to 
the migration, that is now in progress, of crowds of our fellow 
citizens to Texas or any other part of Mexico. If, on the other 
hand, it is meant, that this " consent" may lawfully be obtained 
by the imposition of civil disabilities, disfranchisement, exclusion 
from sympathy ; by making the free colored man the victim of a 
relentless proscription, prejudice and scorn ; by rejecting alto- 
gether his oath in courts of justice, thus leaving his property, his 
person, his wife, his children, and all that God has by his very 
constitution made dear to him, unprotected ^"rom the outrage and 
insult of every unfeeling tyrant, it becomes a solemn farce, it is 
the refinement of inhumanity, a mockery of all mercy, it is cruel, 
unmanly, and meriting the just indignation of every American, 
and the noble nation that bears his name. To say that the ex- 
pression of " consent" thus extorted is the approbation of the mind, 
is as preposterous as to affirm that a man consents to surrender 
his purse, on the condition that you spare his life, or, to be trans- 
ported to Botany Bay, when the hand of despotism is ready to 
stab him to the heart. 



8 JA3. g. eirney's letter. 

Now, if the Colonization Society has done — is doing this; if 
it has succeeded in bringing around it, the learned, the religious, 
the influential ; if by the multiplied resolutions of favoring legis- 
latures, of ecclesiastical bodies, with their hundred conventions, 
assemblies, conferences, and associations, it has so far exalted 
itself into the high places of public sentiment, as itself to consti 
tute public sentiment; if it has acquired great authority over the 
mind of this people, and uses it to encourage, and not to check 
this heartless and grinding oppression ; if, instead of pleading for 
mercy to the weak and helpless, it sanctifies the most open and 
crushing injustice, or even connives at it, by urging the necessity 
of colonization upon the alleged ground of the immutability of 
this state of things, for the perpetuation of which it is lending all 
its influence ; if, I say, it has done this, its unsoundness, its foul 
ness cannot be too soon, or too fully exposed, that the just sen- 
tence of condemnation may be passed upon it by every good man 
and patriot of the land. 

When, also, in the progress of its developement, it throws itself 
before the public, as the only effectual and appropriate remedy 
for slavery, demanding upon that ground, of the whole country a 
monopoly of its support, it is objectionable, as seems to me, be- 
cause of the principles upon which it is pressed upon the atten- 
tion of the community, because of their practical results, and of 
the utter inadequacy of colonization, whilst in connection with 
these principles, to the extinguishment of slavery. In order that 
the objections may be more distinctly exhibited, they will be 
arranged under the several general heads of 

1. The practical influence of colonization upon the 

WHITES. 

2. Upon the colored population ; — and 

3. Upon Africa. 

1 . The practical influence of Colonization upon the Whites. 

All great revolutions of sentiment in masses of men, calling, of 
course, for a corresponding change of action, must lay their foun- 
dation in some great principle (or principles) undeniably true in 
theory; which all the facts pertaining to it, when taken singly 
tend to prove, and taken together, fully establish as true, 
to all unprejudiced minds. Thus in religion — the great truth — 
marts entire alienation from God — is the only one that has ever 
been used successfully, to make men feel their need of the remedy 
proposed by the gospel. All paring away, or attenuation of this 
truth has, I apprehend, been attended with a corresponding in- 
efficacy in the application of the remedy, and simply on this 
ground; that the various phases, and conditions, and circumstances 
of man's moral malady, tend individually, to indicate this truth 



JAS. G. BISNEY'S LETTER. 9 

and no other, and in the aggregate to establish it. The progress 
of the temperance cause will supply another 'llustration of this 
position. The great truth here was — that Alcohol taken m any 
quantity — and in proportion to thai quantity, is injurious to persons 
in health. Many attempts at public reformation had been made 
in former times, on the diluted principle, that alcohol is injurious 
only when taken immoderately. They were all unsuccessful 
When the total exclusion from ordinary use of ardent spirits, 
was insisted upon, and a nearer approach to the true principle was 
made, there followed a proportionate success — so great, indeed, 
as to entitle the change effected in the habits of the nation to the 
name of ' Reformation. 5 But, I doubt not, if it is to be made 
still more thorough, or even to be held at its present state of ten- 
sion, a resort to the true principle of entire abstinence from every 
thing alcoholic will be found necessary. 

Again, Sir. What was the great truth, or principle, upon which 
the American Revolution was supported? Was it any other 
than this, that ' all men are created equal? ' This was the trunk 
throwing out towards heaven its noble branches, ' that they are 
endowed by their Creator, with the inalienable rights to life, liberty 
and the pursuit of happiness.' You, I am sure, Sir, do not be- 
lieve, that this principle, had it suffered the least adulteration, 
would have been sufficiently vivifying to produce the great revo- 
lution that it did produce, in our condition; or, that had it been 
polluted by the smallest ingredient recognizing as true, the right 
of one man to reign over his fellow men, for his ow?i and not their 
benefit; or that a knot of nobility were entitled to privileges inde- 
pendently of merit; or that men might jus>\ be compelled to wor- 
ship God in a way which did violence to their consciences; or, that 
in fine, had the least particle of impure leaven been kneaded into 
the elevating declaration of man's equality, it would have retain- 
ed that indistructible vigor, which is, this moment, undermining 
the foundation of every tyrant's throne on earth. 

Whatever of truth there may be in the foregoing remarks, 1 
wish to apply it to the subject before us; to the attempt to show, 
that the principles on which colonization is recommended to the 
nation, are unsound, imperfect and repugnant — Therefore, that 
they will not, nay cannot, so long as man's nature remains as it 
is, operate efficiently in producing a revolution in our present 
habits so great as to extinguish slavery. The very nature of mind, 
confirmed by all observation, proves the correctness of this re- 
mark, that, when men are to be moved from their present posi- 
tion still further on, in a line with their habits, or prejudices, 
or passions, a false principle may be altogether adequate, but 
when in opposition to them, the principle on which action is de« 

-it must be truths 



10 JAS. G. BIRNEY's LETTER. 

Now the groiinds upon which colonization has asked for favor 
from the people of the United States, are mainly these. 1. That 
slavery, as it is, in our country, is justifiable, or that immediate 
emancipation is out of the question. 2. That the free colored 
people are, of all classes in the community, the most annoying- to 
us; the most hopeless, degraded, vicious and unhappy, and that, 
therefore — 3. We ought, in the exercise of a sound policy foi 
ourselves, and from sympathy with these people, to remove them 
to Africa, where the causes of their degradation, vice, and misery 
will not follow them. 4. That we shall, in sending them to Liberia, 
by their instrumentality in civilizing and christianizing Africa, 
pay in some measure the debt we owe to that continent for the 
mighty trespass we have committed upon her. 

Here we see a strange mixture of true principles, with others 
that are utterly false. No one will controvert, for a moment, the 
position that we ought to feel sympathy, aye, even to weeping, 
with that poor and defenceless class among us, whose degradation 
and misery originated in the avarice and pride of our ancestors, 
and have been kept alive by the same active passions in us their 
descendants. Nor will it be more disputed, when it is remem- 
bered, that we have not been the least efficient of the parties in 
the great confederacy made up of Pagan and Mahomedan, Cath- 
olic and Protestant, Christian and Infidel, that has torn from Af- 
rica more than FORTY MILLIONS of her sons and daughters, 
consigning them to hopeless and cruel bondage; so cruel, so 
hopeless, that there remains not to this day, of that vast number, 
more than one fourth, after taking into the account all their natu- 
ral increase. I repea., when this is remembered in all its fla- 
grancy, no one will deny that we owe to that ill-fated people a 
debt of frightful amount. 

But these true principles, founded in sympathy with the in- 
jured, and in a desire to repay what justice demands; tending too, 
in their fair and unobstructed influence, to the annihilation of 
slavery, are adulterated, rendered ineffectual, by being mixed up 
with others that are, in my view, totally false and unsound: viz. 
that it is a law of necessity that the free colored people should 
forever remain degraded and unhappy whilst they continue 
among us, and, that it is lawful, right, just, before God and man, 
in certain cases, in existing circumstances, (of which circumstances 
the wrong-doers are the exclusive judges,) to hold our fellow man 
as property. So far from this compound operating to the exter- 
mination of slavery, it is all that the veriest slaveholder in the ab- 
stract (if there be such a thing) asks; make to him but this con- 
cession, admit but this single ingredient, that, in present circum- 
stances, he may hold his fellow creature as property, and you may 
make up the remainder of the mass with whatever ingredients 
best suit your feelings or your fancy; you may thunder away with 



JAS. G. RIRNEY'S LETTER. 1 1 

your colonization and gradual emancipation speeches c until the 
winds do crack their cheeks,' he feels easy and unconcerned, 
knowing, that his interests are under convey of a false principle, 
powerful in its influence, and overmastering, when running, as it 
boes here, coincident with habits, and prejudices, and passions. 

Let us suppose, for a moment, what would be the probable 
train of reflections, coursing through the mind of a slaveholder, 
whose conscience had been somewhat aroused and was on the 
sve of healthful pulsations, after having heard one of our most 
ingenious and eloquent colonization speeches: ' 'Tis true, God 
has said he has made of one blood all nations of men; that he has 
required of us at all times, to do justice and love mercy; and, in 
the history of the good Samaritan, has taught us that all men are 
our neighbors: — He has enjoined upon us love to our neighbor as 
to ourselves, a love that workelh no ill to him, and whatsoever we 
would that men should do unto us, we t hould so do unto them. It 
is further true, that God has declared I mself the avenger of the 
poor and the oppressed, and that he has hitherto, inseparably con 
nected with slavery, the corruption an 1 effeminacy of the en 
slavers; that he has brought upon all nations who have persisted 
in it, judgments desolating and awful, and given to the oppressed, 
triumph in the land, that has looked upon their sufferings and de 
gradation. I remember, too, that the Fathers of our country 
when contending against tyranny, declared in the most solemn 
manner, that all men are created equal, that their right to life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, is a truth that has been evolv- 
ed, not from a complicated train of premises, but that it is * self- 
eviden',' and, that whenever any form of government becomes 
destructive to life, and interferes unnecessarily with our pursuit ot 
happiness, it is the right of the oppressed to abolish it. 

JBut what do I now hear, from statesmen, orators, politicians, 
doctors of law, and doctors of divinity, in fine, from men, whom 
the whole country delight to honor for their intelligence, patriot- 
ism and religion, and who know much more of this delicate sub- 
ject than I do? With one consent, they say in substance, that 
we are not under obligation, now, to do unto others as we would 
they should do unto us; or if we are, our slaves whose lot has 
been ordered by God himself so much below ours, cannot certain- 
ly be included in the number to whom this obligation is due; 
that all men are not created equal; in as much as some are author- 
ized, nay required, under existing circumstances, to withhold from 
others their liberty, to block up every avenue to their happiness, 
to abridge their lives by reducing them to slavery, and inflicting 
upon them all its concomitant enormities. Or if men are created 
equal, education, and the influences under which their character 
has been formed, have made them unequal; therefore if there be 
found a hrge number of our fellow-men reduced to tiiis inequali- 



12 



JAS. G. BIRNEY'S LETTER. 



ty, sunk into the low grounds of slavery, and suffering its hope 
destroying sorrows, they must he there detained 'for the present ,' 
* as things now are,'' until they can he gradually prepared — it may 
be, after some half dozen generations have gone to their eternal 
home — for their safe transfer from the suffocating feculence of 
slavery to the pure and health-giving air of the high-grounds of 
freedom. And in rcfcreii.ee to slavery itself, I hear it said — how- 
ever hatefnl, and wicked, and deserving of the execration of every 
gentleman and christian, it may he, in the abstract, however sin- 
ful our remote ancestors may have been in suffering it to be im- 
posed on them, and the intervening generations in continuing it, 
yet, in the process by which it has been transmitted down to us. 
notwithstanding its victims have been multiplied to MILLIONS, 
and cries, and tears, and curses, have in unbroken mass, ascend- 
ed, day and night, to God's throne, it has been purified from all 
its guilt and injustice, and we now, instead of rebuke and censure, 
deserve somewhat, at least, of sympathy and praise for submitting, 
with so much patience, to the evil of keeping our ' neighbors,' 
loaded with chains and fett< rs of interminable bondage. 

And am I not further told, that the free colored people of our 
country are the most degraded and unhappy class of the commu- 
nity; is it not continually asserted, and I begin almost to believe 
it, that our slaves are in a better condition, more happy, and con- 
tented than they ? Would it not then be a great departure from 
the law of love, a want of charity to my trusty slave, whose fathers 
served mine, and who is now faithfully serving me, to release 
him from bondage, and bestow upon him that freedcui which 
must degrade him from his present comparatively enviable caste, 
and consign him to one in which he and all his posterity must 
forever remain miserable? Now in all this conflict of old truths, 
of the truths of God's word, and of our government, with the 
prevailing and popular commentaries upon them, what shall I do? 
This I will do — To say the least of it, it is a ' delicate question;' 
it has intrinsic difficulties, therefore I ought to let it alone. My 
own case is a peculiar one; I am in circumstances of which no 
one is qualified, or has (of this 1 am pretty sure) authority to 
judge except myself. These may and probably will continue un- 
changed during my life, and, for aught that appears, they may 
remain 'present circumstances,'' to my great, great grand children; 
and thus they, too, may enjoy all the advantages, without the sin 
of slavery. However, let the sin and danger be what they may 
iu future, posterity will take care of itself; ' providences' will re- 
lieve them; it is no business of mine; so I will let alone the whole 
matter.' 

Now, sir, tins is a case only supposed to occur on the presenta- 
tion of some of the grounds of colonization ists in relation to 
slavery. But, I doubt not, it is often an actual case, and that 



jas. g. birney's letter. 13 

thus slavery as it is in practice* is justified; the consciences of 
men are put at ease; the great duty of man to do unto others as 
ile would they should do unto him, and the great truth, that ' all 
men are created equal? on which our republican institutions stand, 
virtually lived down. 

If to the above considerations in reference to slavery, arising 
out of the manner in which that subject is treated by coloni- 
zationists, there be added the effects of a sentiment of hostility 
against the free colored people, excited in the whites by a per- 
severing reiteration of the policy of removing from among us that 
class of persons, because they are not only pestilent to us all, but 
dangerous, by their very presence, to the full repose of the slave- 
holder, together with the irritated and indignant feelings which 
such a course is calculated to produce in their minds, the clue is 
furnished to account for the facts, that under the colonization re- 
gimen, slavery, as a system, remains unshaken, and that Liberian 
emigration, so far as the free colored people are concerned, is al- 
most entirely abandoned. 

If any of the conclusions above indicated be true, viz. that the 
system of slavery in our country remains unshaken, and that we 
are living down the great foundation principle of the government ; 
that a persecuting and malignant spirit has been excited against 
the free colored people ; that the consciences of men, whilst 
they are perpetrating the greatest wrong that can be perpetrated, 
this side the grave, against their fellow men, are put at ease, it is 
greatly to be deplored : and if on impartial examination, the 
cause of all this be detected in colonization principles ; or if it 
is only probable, that it may be detected there, with what alacrity 
should we abandon a course of action in which a great portion 
of the influence of the nation has been engaged, so injurious to 
us as a people, and to the great cause of humanity and freedom 
throughout the world. 

* I would contribute my mite to disabuse the public mind and relieve the 
discussion of slavery from the influence of the expression " slavery in the 
abstract." This drug has been powerfully narcotic to the consciences of 
slaveholders. Many who are very well content with the enormities of slavery 
in practice, have to it in the abstract a hatred that is perfect. 
Let us try it by analogies, to see whether any result that is not absolutely 
ridiculous can be obtained. A man acts fraudulently towards you and all 
his neighbors, yet, from his heart he hates fraud and dishonesty in the ab- 
stract ! ! Another meets you every evening with the wages of your daily 
labor in your pocket— by threats and force he wrests them from you. Now 
this man, as much as any other man, detests robbery in the abstract ! ! 
More especially, if he has accompanied each instance of violence with as 
much food as will keep you alive. It would seem to be not more unreason- 
able to talk of laws, or morals, or astronomy, or chemistry, food, or rai- 
ment, or lodging in the abstract, than of slavery in the abstract. 
If the death blow can be given to slavery in practice, the abstract will 
scarcely be worth contending about. 
2 



14 jas. g. birney's letter. 

In searching for the true cause of the apparent permanency 
of slavery, anterior to the direct efforts made in the last two or 
three years to overthrow it, I will not reject as unworthy of con- 
sideration, the state of the public mind during the war of 1812- 
15, when it was looking abroad rather than at home ; nor the 
condition of the country upon the return of peace ; the high 
prices of southern productions, and the great southern region that 
had been acquired and was thrown into the market by the gov- 
ernment, soon after the war, in the very midst of slaveholders. 
It is nothing more than just to take these things into the estimate 
of cause, when it is attempted to account for the comparative in- 
ertness of the people of the United States on the subject of sla- 
very. But their effect was, to occasion only neglect of consider- 
ation : there was in them no impugning of leading principles, 
no adulteration of the great truths asserted by our revolutionary 
fathers, ' at a time that tried men's souls.' Such obstacles as 
these never could have successfully opposed, for any length of 
time, the disencumbered principles and intelligence of our coun- 
trymen. Nothing could, so long, have withstood their united 
vigor, unless it had possessed some accident, fitted to draw them 
away from the contemplation of pure truth to some counterfeit 
presentment of it — to divert their mental and moral vision from 
the clear fountain of light, to its false images ; which, ever, when 
they exist, are seen near the great luminary in the heavens. 

Does it look like straining to find the connexion between 
cause and effect, when our national inertness is ascribed to the 
principle so diligently inculcated by colonizationists, that slavery, 
however sinful and wrong it may have been heretofore, and ma}% 
possibly, be hereafter — now, under existing circumstances is neither 
rinful nor wrong 7 To what else can you attribute the alleged 
melioration of slavery in many parts of the country ? which in 
most instances amounts to nothing more than an excuse, an ar- 
gument sent forth in the trappings of humanity for its continu 
ance. How else has it happened, that whilst w r e have, in our 
declaration of Independence, in our general and state constitu- 
tions, continually presented to us the purest principles of liberty, 
divested of all ambiguity, the most unequivocal affirmations of 
the rights of man, as man, united to the freest practice under 
them, that is enjoyed on earth ; how happens it, I ask, that, whilst 
the systems of slavery reared for centuries in other countries"; in 
Mexico, in Colombia, Gautemala — in fine, in all the Republics of 
the South, humbly as we rate them when compared with our- 
selves ; that even West India bondage, inveterated by use and 
habit, sustained by wealth and title and talent, has by the force 
of truth been dashed in shivers to the ground, whilst ours looks 
like a wall of adamant ; that, whilst nearly all the civilized na- 
tions of the globe have broken the yoke of the slave, we stand, 



JA3. G. EIRNEY'S LETTER. 15 

followed with Brazil, the most contemptible of all despotisms, 
bawling out to the world ' all men are created equal;' whilst the 
scourge, dripping with the blood, is brandished by hands besmear- 
ed with the gore of nearly three millions of our fellow men ? If, 
sir, there be any cause other than the principles by which colo- 
nization is urged, I have not been so fortunate as to discover it. 
Will it be contended that slavery, as a system, is not to all ap- 
pearance, more confirmed among us than it was fifteen or eigh- 
teen years ago ? Will it be said, that, so far as the nation feel; 
on the subject, there has been a change favorable to the enlarg- 
ment of the slave ? Where will the evidence be sought to sus- 
tain the affirmation ? In the oondition of things, as they relate 
to slavery in the District of Columbia, over which, it is undis- 
puted that Congress possesses powers of legislation as full as 
those of a state over the territory within its limits ? Will it be 
found in the large and well arranged depots for the reception and 
confinement of slaves ? In the spacious factories erected and 
furnished within the District for the prosecution of the slave 
trade ; throwing into contempt by the extent and regularity of 
their business, the factories of the busiest traffickers in human 
flesh on the coast of Africa ? Is it to be found in the unblushing 
advertisements of the slavers, published too in the most respect- 
able Gazettes of Washington and Alexandria, declaring that 
1 they are in the market,' that the shambles for men and women 
and little children, for fathers and mothers, and sisters and broth- 
ers, and wives and husbands, by the hundred, are opened day 
and night, in the very purlieus of the Capitol, so near, that the 
shrieks of sundered friends and relatives may almost penetrate to 
the chambers of deliberation ? Shall we look for the proof in 
the regular slave trade that is carried on from the District, by sea 
and by land, to our Southern ports ; a trade as regularly and sys- 
tematically conducted as any that is driven between New York 
and Liverpool or Havre ? Or in the droves of slaves purchased 
by members of Congress, and either conducted by themselves in 
person, or by proxy to their quarters ? * Or, if proof that sla- 
very, as a system, is shaken, cannot be found in any of these 
sources, shall we resort to Congress itself, the great representa- 
tive of national sentiment ? What do we find here ? A be- 
coming deliberation on this great subject ; a respectful attention 
to the scores of petitions praying that slavery in the District, 
where its power is undisputed, may be abolished ? No, Sir, not 
so. The numerous petitions presented, during the very last ses- 
sion, were referred for burial without hope of resurrection, to the 

* An honorable Senator has been seen, several hundred miles frem 
Washington, convoying a lot of slaves, purchased during his official at- 
tendance in that city, almost to the very doors of the hats intended for their 
residence. 



16 JAS. g. birney's letter. 

Committee on the District of Columbia — and the bare incidental 
introduction of the subject, on the discussion of a bill granting 
permission to Edward Brooke to bring into the District two slaves, 
had well nigh set the House of Representatives in flame. The 
slaveholder, whenever the subject of emancipation within the 
District, or in any other way, is brought up, however incidental it 
may be, straightway vociferates to the free States' representatives 
' hands off — don't touch this delicate subject — you know nothing 
about it — it belongs exclusively to us of the South, who know all 
about it — if you persist in meddling with it, the Union will fly to 
atoms — for we know, as surely as you abolish slavery in the Dis- 
trict, you will attempt its abolition in the Slates.' 

The logical dress of the outcry is this, 'that if Congress choose 
to exert a power which is altogether uncontroverted, they will, 
therefore exert a power which no one has ever attributed to them, 
and which they utterly disclaim.' For further illustration — I am 
indebted to my neighbor $1000, and refusing to pay, the coer- 
cion of the law is brought to his aid. Called upon for my de- 
fence to the action, I admit, in the fullest manner, the justice of 
the claim — yet still plead, that if the court aid my adversary in 
the recovery of a just debt, its aid will, therefore, soon be invoked 
for the recovery of an unjust debt. Now, Sir, 1 ask, can there 
"be any hearty desire in Congress, or in the people whom they 
represent, for the extermination of slavery, any where, when the 
majority are bullied by such threats, and satisfied with such logic 
as this ? And is there not adequate cause to account for this 
lack of proper feeling and right opinion on the subject of slavery, 
to be found in these inculcations annually and eloquently urged 
in the very capital of our country — ' that slavery now, is not 
wrong — that emancipation ought not to be encouraged, unless in 
connection with expatriation and removal to Africa — and that it is 
an impossible thing for the colored people to remain here free except 
in a slate of hopeless degradation and unhappiness V I cannot en- 
tertain a doubt, Sir, that you will perceive, and cheerfully admit, 
that such doctrines, if received by the community, naturally tend 
to produce the listlessness of which I have been speaking: — 
whether or not they are Colonization doctrines, I leave to you and 
my readers to decide. 

2. Their appropriate tendency is to excite a malignant and 
persecuting spirit against the free colored people — and more rigor- 
ous enactments against the slaves. If this be the legitimate re- 
sult, you, I know, will agree with me in saying, there is in it a 
shameful lack of magnanimity and manhood. For a people 
whom God has raised from small beginnings to be great and 
commanding — to whom he has opened his liberal hand, supply- 
ing every temporal want that they can feel — upon whom he has 
bestowed liberty, civil, political, religious ; great moral and intel- 



JAS. G. BIRNEi's LETTER. 17 

lectual power ; for such a people to descend from the c heaven 
kissing hill ' on which they have been placed, to the low and 
odious task of persecuting a poor, a weak and defenceless class 
of our population, which we have, so far, done every thing to 
degrade ; nothing to elevate, — to abuse and vilify them, that they 
may be compelled to c consent ' to expatriation ; and all this, too, 
under the plea of humanity, philanthropy, religion — Oh, Sir, it is 
a rank offence before God. He gives power, that it may be used 
for good, not for evil — for the protection of the helpless, not for 
their destruction — and he has declared, that to visit the widow 
and the orphan, is evidence of that pure and undefiled religion 
with which he is well pleased. Nature — the mora! constitution 
of man revolts against oppression of this kind : — For observe, 
Sir, a knot of sturdy lads imposing upon a puny and decrepid 
brother, — do not feelings of indignation at such conduct arise in 
your breast beyond the power of suppression ? I feel assured 
they do, Sir, not only in yours but in the breast of every one who 
is not himself a tyrant. Thus, opposed by the benevolence of 
God and the moral constitution of man, no such system can, on a 
great scale, be ultimately successful. 

However, to the proof, that this persecuting and rigorous spir- 
it, has been growing among us, since colonization principles have 
been generally received by the community. It is to be found, in 
the most unequivocal source — the laws of nearly all the slave 
states. Take for specimens a few. I have seen the son of a 
white woman sold into perpetual slavery by the Commonwealth 
of "Virginia — attempting to regain by legal process in a distant 
State his long lost liberty. 

Has a free colored man, by his industry, secured for himself 
and those dependent upon him, a permanent place of residence, 
or do the avails of his economy and exertions lie in real property ? 
Acts of banishment exist compelling him to remove within ninety 
days. Does he seek employment in distant commerce, or is he 
but a simple mariner on board a vessel entering the ports of sev- 
eral of the slave states, either for purposes of trade or through 
stress of weather? He is thrown into prison as a felon, and 
there detained at the Captain's cost [which eventually must be 
his] until the vessel is ready to depart. 

Is he charged with a criminal offence ? He is tried — not as 
formerly, before tribunals that were really competent to decree 
justice — but by commissions made up of men, selected for the 
most part, without reference to their knowledge of the laws of 
the state, either civil or criminal. 

Does the mind of a slave rise above his low condition — does 

he thirst for knowledge, its proper food, and above all for that 

knowledge c which is life eternal ? ' His master, should he teach 

him, is subjected to indictment and fine. His fellow-slave 3 should 

2* 



18 JAS. G. BIRNEY'S LETTERo 

he instruct him, or should the free colored person undertake the 
task, or give or sell him any book, he is whipped or fined, or 
whipped and fined at discretion. Does the intelligent free col- 
ored man look with compassion upon his brethren, bond or free 
—behold their degradation — their ignorance ? Does he witness 
how unpitied they go out of this world — how unprepared to enter 
upon that which is to come, — does he thence desire, with the zeal 
of his Master, and as his minister, to declare to them the glad 
news that a Saviour has died for them, and loves them, and de- 
sires them to be eternally happy ; to impress upon them the pure 
and peaceable and comforting truths of his gospel ? — should he at- 
tempt it in Virginia, he is scourged — so is every free colored 
person or slave that listens to him. — These, Sir, and other kin- 
dred fruits are the results of a policy which insists upon the ban- 
ishment of the free colored people. 

3. — The influence of these principles is opposed to emancipa- 
tion. I am not unaware, that it has been supposed to be adjutory 
to emancipation ; and proof of this is offered in the 800 or 900 
slaves that have been transported to Liberia. The fact, that about 
this number have been emancipated by transportation to Africa is 
admitted. These are all the instances of emancipation, that can 
be attributed to the influence of colonization principles — for, when 
they insist that emancipation should never be divorced from de- 
portation, they cannot lay claim to the many thousand who are 
emancipated in this country, that they may, if they choose, re- 
main here, and who have remained here. It would be an un- 
fair pretension, to ascribe to the influence of certain principles, 
effects, which they have no natural and inherent tendency to pro- 
duce. But it is very confidently believed and asserted, that the 
discussion of colonization throughout our country, has incidental- 
ly, brought up the subject of slavery to public consideration — and 
that to this are to be set down the numerous emancipations that 
have been granted, where the beneficiaries have not been sent 
out of the country. I grant, it is probable, that in this way, 
many persons may have been led to see the duty of emancipa- 
tion, who would not, otherwise, have been conducted to a know- 
ledge of it. But would it not be altogether illogical to ascribe 
emancipations, in the country, to a principle that insisted upon 
emancipations out of the country? Fully as much so, it seems to 
me, as to ascribe the conversion of a man to the christian religion, 
to his having heard the ingenious arguments of an infidel — 
when, in truth, it may have been only the occasion upon which 
his mind discovered, for the first time, the weakness of infidelity, 
and the strength of the gospel. 

But, Sir, during all this time — these 16 or 17 years of gloom to 
the slave — what has not been lost to the cause of freedom and 
religion, by the substitution of a cowardly, incidental discussion of 



JAS. g. birney's letter. 19 

slavery, for one which is manly and undisguised. If the sly and 
incidental presentation of it produce the effects with which it is 
credited, how much more rich, blessed, and abundant would they 
have been, had it been pressed openly and directly, yet kindly, 
upon the hearts and consciences and patriotism of this communi- 
ty ! It is to be feared, that we, who have been supporters of 
colonization, have, thro' ignorance, been instrumental in pro- 
longing, at least through one lifetime, the dark reign of slavery 
on the earth, and in sending one generation of our fellow men, 
weeping witnesses of its bitterness, to a comfortless grave ! 

So thoroughly has been the inoculation of the public with the 
sentiment, that our slaves, if emancipated, must be removed from 
the country, that its effects are of surprising uniformity. Address 
men in this way — ' Do you not believe that slavery is sinful and 
in direct opposition to the principles of our government ? ' the 
reply — almost without exception — is, ' what shall we do with our 
slaves, if we manumit them ? Where shall we send them ? It 
will never do, in the world, for them to remain among us — it is 
better to retain them as they are, indefinitely in slavery, than to 
liberate them here.' This feeling has led to cases of great appa- 
rent inhumanity and uncharitableness. One of these has come to 
my knowledge in so direct a manner, that I have no ground for 
doubting the truth of it in any particular. A person living in a 
slave State is the owner of a good looking young man, who is 
permitted, on his parole of honor, to reside in Cincinnati — to re- 
ceive the hire for his own services from the gentleman in whose 
employment he is — not, in any part for his own use, but to be 
transmitted according to his [the slave's] discretion to his owner. 
He has learned to read and write, and has given, in his uniform 
conduct, the best evidence, that lie is, in truth, as he professes to be, 
a Christian. He has never, in the least degree, violated his in- 
tegrity toward his owner, by retaining any of the fruits of his 
own toil, or by asserting his liberty as he might, at any time, do 
in Ohio. His friends and connections are all residents of this 
country. This circumstance, united to a very unfavorable opinion 
of the present condition and future prospects of Liberia, has made 
him entirely averse to a removal thither. He has a strong de- 
sire to obtain his freedom, and has offered for it a large sum. 
His offers have been steadily met by a refusal, at any price — yet 
he has been promised his liberty gratuitously, if he will ' consent' 
to emigrate to Liberia. To this Iip entertains an insurmountable 
repugnance — preferring to rem&ki in his present condition, al- 
though his noble spirit is almost worn down with its hopelessness. 
Now, Sir, were it not for the prevalent opinion, that the colored 
man, whatever may be his intellectual or moral elevation — can 
never be respectable or happy among us, I doubt whether such 
a case as this, calling for the deepest sympathy, the most earnest 



20 JAS. g. birnet's letter. 

commiseration, could have been found in the private annals of 
Western slavery. There is no country, in its best state, that 
would not suffer loss by the banishment of such a man. 

4. — They are an opiate to the consciences of many, who 
would otherwise, in all probability, feel deeply and keenly, the 
injustice and the sin of slavery. They are the purchase of a lit- 
tle moi'e sleep, a little more slumber. I have friends, dear to me, 
who would, in integrity, rank with the Camilii, and the Fabricii, 
and in strength of christian principle, fall but little behind the 
martyrs of the church, — who have thus been persuaded to lay 
this flattering unction to their souls, ' that under existing circum- 
stqnces ' it is right before God, by system, to take from the weak 
and the defenceless the daily proceeds of their labor, save what 
may be sufficient to support them in a state for the continuance 
of the extortion. And who does not perceive slavery to be this 7 
I am certain many of them will read this, — such, I would ask, in 
all kindness, if, after having attended the meeting of a Colonization 
Society, and contributed to its support their ten, twenty, or, it may 
be, their fifty dollars ; or after having heard a highly wrought 
and eloquent colonization speech, they have not seen in very 
' dim effulgence,' the noble declaration of our Patriot Fathers — 
that all men are created equal ? And heard in distant, and yet 
more distant peals, the thunder of God's word against the op- 
pressor of his poor ? 

5. — Colonization principles have, in a great degree, paralyzed 
the power of the truth, and of the ministry in the South. That 
the messages of the gospel have comparatively but little influence 
upon mind, in the exclusive^ 7 planting sections of the country, 
where the number of slaves is great, will not be denied by any 
impartial and considerate observer. This I am not inclined to 
attribute to any defect in the inherent power of the great truths — 
as applicable to Southern mind — adapted by God so wisely to the 
internal constitution of man. For there have been, and there are 
yet, daily overturned by them, sins as besetting and as soul-de- 
stroying, as slavery. When I recollect, too, the condition of the 
Roman Empire, at the time when Paul preached in her voluptu- 
ous metropolis, and throughout her scarcely less voluptuous te- 
trarchies: the aggravated system of slavery that prevailed there 
— the incontinence — the political corruption — the private vice — 
and that over all these Christianity chanted her mild triumphs, 
I see no reason for distrusting her efficacy, when fairly tried 
upon any portion of our countrymen. Put, when I further re- 
member, that he was partaker in no vicious custom of the coun- 
try leading him to perpetrate injustice and to overlook mercy ; 
that whatever impurity might be demanded by social manners, 
or authorized by municipal institutions, he kept himself pure ; 
that, when thrown into the very midnight of Roman pollution 



JAS. g. birney's letter. 21 

his Christianity was seen, emitting a clearer, purer and more 
quenchless lustre — the secret of his success is fully revealed. Be- 
hold, at the present time, a professed follower of Paul and of 
his Master— blessed, perhaps, with a sound education in letters 
and science — versed in christian lore — brought up in the land of 
the free ; with a mind revolting against slavery and every form 
of oppression ; see him, making his way to the South, ready, 
with the fervor of a neophyte, to declare the messages of God's 
love to all for whom they were intended ; — see him, almost as 
soon as the introduction to the scene of action is past, beginning 
his labor of love by utterly neglecting ' to preach the gospel to 
the poor ' — by lamenting the hard lot of masters, the evU of sla- 
very — complaining of the wickedness of the slaves, — excusing 
eveiy thing in the slaveholder except acts of cruelty that rouse 
a neighborhood to astonishment ; next, marrying a widow, or a 
ward, or a ' for tune, ,' with a retinue of his parishioners for her 
dowry ; afterward, talking bravely of the price of cotton, and of 
men to make it ; and, at last, in desperation, drumming into si- 
lence his agonizing and wailing conscience, by using the very 
book of God's love to justify man's oppression ; — seeing all this, 
the secret of his unsuccessfulness is made as clear as noon-day. 
Slavery has shorn him of his strength, and his hands are as indo- 
lent and uncertain in pointing out the way of life — if they point 
at all — as are the hands of a chronometer to point out the progress 
of time during the last half hour previously to its running down. 
I am altogether unconscious of any feeling which would 
prompt me to utter an unkind word against ministers of the gos- 
pel in the South. There are amongst them, I know, men of the 
most sterling principle, — who, so far as they are individually con- 
cerned, have lived, and are yet living, elevated far above the pes- 
tilential influence of slavery. To such, in my apprehension, the 
most disinterested witnesses — I appeal for testimony in the case ; 
and ask, if the marriages of poor ministers with widows rich in 
slaves have not become so frequent as to take away from them 
their c casual ' or' accidental ' character, — if they have not brought 
a deep reproach upon the cause of religion, — and if those gen- 
tlemen, who have thus entangled themselves in the meshes of 
slavery, are not looked upon by the very people to whom they 
were sent, and who are in the same condemnation as ' blind 
watchmen, dumb dogs that cannot bark, sleeping, lying down to 
slumber ?' And further, whether those gentlemen, who, on the 
rare occasions of their preaching, rebuke with all authority the 
profanation of the Sabbath — the love of money, luxury, profanity, 
intemperance, &c. &c. — who have been heard to pray with all 
fervor, for the Poles, the Greeks, and all the down-trodden of 
foreign lands, have been ever heard, in any of their public min- 
istrations, to prefer but one listless prayer for the conversion of 



22 JAS. g. birney's letter. 

the slaveholder to the doing of justice — his heart to the love of 
mere) 7 , and that the two millions of his ' neighbors ' lying in 
bondage before his eyes, might, by the force of christian principle 
be enlarged, and the oppressed among us go free ? And, yet 
further, are not such slaveholding ministers somewhat warmer in 
their attachment to colonization, than the majority of other men? 
Do not they insist upon its capacity for the extermination of sla- 
very, as a reason why they do not themselves act more decisive- 
ly upon the subject ? "and do they not, in frequent instances, be- 
come angry and indignant at those who attempt to agitate their 
consciences, by holding up their own duty in reference to sla- 
very right before them ? * 

But, sir, I am not unaware, that it may be said, I am attaching 
to colonization, consequences that flow solely from slavery, and 
that would be what they are, independently of colonization, or if it 
had never been thought of. I admit in the fullest manner the 
force of the remark. It contains the very substance of my ob- 
jection to colonization — which is, that, although not originating — 
colonization has taken up and sustained the vital principle of 
slavery, when it declares that slavery 7iow> is right. Add to this, 
that, if it does not, in so many words justify — it gives favor to an 
unscriptural, therefore unreasonable, prejudice against the col- 
ored man ; — it asserts the impotency of religion itself to efface it 
— it practically converts this prejudice into the instrument by 
which he is persecuted, until he 'consent' to exile for life, among 
savage men and in a deadly clime. These principles, jointly or 
severally, are, in my view, objectionable ; and not the less so, 
because [introduced upon the heel of the Missouri question] they 
have ever since been wielded by the power of talent, the authority 
of patriotism, and the venerableness of religion, with an influence 
that has been pernicious to our own country — that has sat with 
nightmare pressure upon the cause of emancipation at home, as 
well as upon the cause of liberal principles throughout the world. 

When I assumed an agency for the American Colonization So- 
ciety, one of the grounds upon which I mainly rested my hopes 
of success, was the co-operation of ministers of religion and lay- 
men, in their example of immediate emancipation and transmis- 
sion of their slaves to Liberia. From my earliest recollections of 
slavery, it seemed to be deplored by the religious, that they could 
not liberate them to remain here, with any reasonable prospect 
of conferring a benefit upon them. Nearly all the Ecclesiastical 
bodies in the United States, had passed Resolutions favorable to 

* I have heard it stated, and have no reason for doubting the fact — that 
a member of a Christian church, in the State of Mississippi, was heard to 
say, that he would be delighted at the opportunity of acting as Execution- 
er to a distinguished aboliUuiiist »f New York — if I mistake not, a mem- 
ber of the same church. 



JAS. G. BIRNEY S LETTER. Q Z6 

African colonization, declaring — often, in no very measured 
terms, the great advantages to be derived by the colored people 
from a removal to Africa, their proper home — and the facilities 
afforded by colonization for ridding ourselves of slavery without 
shock or inconvenience. Whilst, in common with others, I had 
taken up the opinion, that the slaves of the country, where they 
were humanely treated, were, as a class, superior in worth to the 
free colored — I yet saw, that, with one consent, the latter were 
advised to emigrate to Africa — not only on their own account, 
but for the purpose of christianizing and civilizing that deeply in- 
jured continent. A fortiori, it seemed to me, that the slave should 
go, — and that now, no one could fail to see — and with delight, — 
that, after years of lamentation, at last a gateway for christian 
emancipation had, in the providence of God been opened, and a 
safe and happy home found for the poor slave. But no : and 
hear the reasons. — 

Agent. — ' Why do you not send your slaves to Liberia, my bro- 
ther ?' 

Christian Slaveholder. — c They are not qualified to go.' 

A. — What! none of them ? — when you have been advising the 
free people of color — the worst, as you allege, in the whole com- 
munity, to emigrate.' 

C. S. — c Well, there may be some one or two of them who 
would do very well in Liberia — but they don't want to go. I 
have told them they might go, and they positively refuse.' 

A. — c They do — do they ? Come now, brother, be honest, 
as before God — and tell me what means you have used to per- 
suade them. I suppose, of course, you have correct information 
concerning Liberia, or you would not have advised any one to 
emigrate thither. Have you, then, told them of the prosperity of 
the industrious — of the religious privileges — the civil liberty ? 
Have you communicated to them a knowledge of the facts which 
satisfied you, that it was the proper home for the black man — 
that it was only there where he could be happy and free indeed ? 
Have you used that persuasive influence which your superior in- 
telligence, and a uniformly kind and ingenuous conduct toward 
him have necessarily given you ? or, have you, on the other hand, 
told him nothing about it ? Or, otherwise, that Liberia is in Af- 
rica — inhabited by naked savages, and lions and tigers, and all 
sorts of noxious animals, and venomous and devouring reptiles 
and serpents — that, it is six or seven thousand miles over the 
ocean, and that, if he chose, after hearing this, he might go and 
welcome ? [Here a pause.] Now, you say your slaves are un- 
willing to go ; I will test your sincerity — will you permit me to 
present the subject to them, with a promise on your part, that such 
of them, as choose to emigrate, may have the privilege of do- 
ing so ?' 



24 JAS. G. BIRNEY*S LETTER. 

C. S. — ' Why, sir, you are for pushing things forward a iittie 
too rapidly — there is a time you know for all things, as Solomon 
says— and great enterprizes move slowly, especially at first. And 
as for your going among my negroes to beat up for recruits, it 
would only serve to harass and perplex them — many of them 
have wives and husbands and children belonging to other planta- 
tions, it would make such of them as would not go, uneasy and 
restless, and most likely create a hubbub among the neighbors — 
it would be cruel to separate husband and wife — parents and 
children. This, every one would feel.' 

A. — 'Then, if I understand you, this whole matter, so far as 
you are concerned in it, is mere trickery — and all your protesta- 
tions in favor of emancipation — if a home could be found for the 
slaves — wind, and nothing else.' 

C. S. — ' Not quite so fast, Mr. Agent — you know very well, 
it would not do to send out emigrants too rapidly. Suppose, 
now, that all the religious people of the South were to send out 
their slaves at once — cannot any one, with half an eye, per- 
ceive, that it would break up the colony ?' 

A. — ' What, you say might, in the case you have supposed, be 
verified — but it is a departure from the question with which we 
set out. I did not ask the reason why all the religious people 
of the South do not send out their slaves, — but why you do not ? 
Whatever might be the result, should all the religious slavehold- 
ers send out their slaves at once — your ten, fifteen, or twenty, 
will not endanger the safety cf the colony, especially if they be 
not sent away empty.' 

C. S. ' The truth is, we cannot make such a great change 
in our domestic arrangements, as you would require, all in a mo- 
ment. A little while hence, the colony will be better prepared to 
receive them, — then they can be sent. Meantime, they may be 
somewhat prepared by education for the change from slavery to 
freedom.' 

A. ' In reply, I must say, if no one can do without his slaves, 
now, — and all act upon this principle, the eolony will scarcely ever 
be enlarged ; for the free people of color have almost ceased to 
emigrate to it. So, that your objection to the present incapacity 
of the colony for receiving large accessions, may, by the very 
course you are pursuing, be always sustainable. But, again — 
are you really and earnestly engaged in educating yours for fu- 
ture emancipation and domiciliation in Liberia — taking off from 
their daily labor of twelve, thirteen, or fourteen hours, some two or 
three to teach them even the elements of learning. I fear you 
are trying to deceive yourself in this matter. And do you .at- 
tempt to instruct them in the religion of the bible, whilst forcibly 
withholding from them the fruits of their daily toil — whilst you 
are doing, what scarcely a page of that book leaves uncondemn- 



JAS. g. birney's letter. 25 

ed, and by which they try your character most closely, because 
they have the deepest interest here ? Has it never occurred to 
you, how vain and ineffectual is this attempt made by you, or any 
one in your situation ? And how great is the absurdity to edu- 
cate in bonds those who are intended to be free 7 Beside all this, 
— your laws forbid the instruction of slaves, and they are becom- 
ing, every year, more rigorous. In all the South there is not, to 
my knowledge, either day-school or Sunday-school for slavo5 
You are a law-abiding man, too — you will not violate the law 
clandestinely ; how, then, tell me, are you preparing your slaves 
for this important change ? ' 

C. S. ' Why, really, Sir, when I come to look the thing right 
in the face, I cannot affirm that much is doing in this way. But, 
the long and the short of the whole matter is, we cannot get 
along in the South without slaves — and would you have us, by 
removing ourselves, give it up to the undisputed dominion of 
Belial ? Under such circumstances I cannot believe that slavery, 
mild and mitigated as it ever ought to be, is so very wrong as it 
might appear in the abstract.'' 

A. — ( It is not difficult to furnish a full answer to this defence. 
If oppressing the weak, and wresting from them the fruits of 
their toil be slavery, it must ever be wrong, allowing the word of 
God to be the test. No device of men — either as individuals or 
nations ; — no surrounding of themselves with circumstances, how 
ever peculiar they may be — even as peculiar as those now exist 
ing in the .South, — can change the nature of truth, render the 
word of God a nullity, and obliterate the great obligation of man 
\ to do unto others as he would they should do unto him. 5 And 
if the South cannot be held, even after the sort in which she now 
is, under the dominion of the Truth, without a continual trespass 
against God's law, it i j dread proof that God does not intend to 
hold it — and that he is giving it up to a strong delusion for its 
overthrow. — In conclusion, to tolerate slavery, because it is mild 
and mitigated, is in complete analogy with a defence of ourselves 
against the charge of injustice and oppression, by pleading that 
we are not as iniquitous and tyrannical as ice might be.' 

C. S. — But, as you have mentioned the Bible — there were ser- 
vants — slaves, as I understand it, among God's own people. 
Abraham was a slave holder, and the Israelites — if not command- 
ed, were permitted by God himself, to hold slaves. Now does 
not this prove, conclusively, that in the mere essence of slavery, 
in the forced and involuntary subjection of one man to the power 
and caprice of another, there cannot, per se, be any thing sinful 
or wrong ? 

A. — ' It is very true, that Abraham had servants — a large num- 
ber of them. He was a prince, and one not of very small di- 
mensions for those times. His slaves — as you will have them to 
3 



26 JA3. g birney's letter. 

be — W ent out with him to battle, and constituted, exclusively, the 
army with which he routed four kings. Their interests were so 
closely connected with his, that he had no doubt of their fidelity 
Would you and your neighbors take out your slaves, in compa- 
nies and regiments — hy "themselves — armed cap-a-pie — to resist 
a strong invading foe, v^o had inscribed upon his banners 'liber- 
ty to the captive — freedom to the slave?' Or would not your 
first apprehension rather he, that they would make common 
cause with the invader^ and raise the fierce shout of the oppress- 
ed determined to be free, 'give me liberty or give me death'? 
But if these servants [subjects] of Abraham were — according to 
your translation, — slaves, so were also the courtiers of King Saul, 
[for they are called 'servants'] and the faithful little army of four 
hundred men, who adhered to David through all his persecutions 
by Saul — part of whom he employed in the delicate igency of 
negotiating a marriage between himself and the act omplished 
Abigail. Further, if God saw proper to commute the punish, 
ment of death, to which, for their sins, he had condemned the 
Canaanites and some of the neighboring nations, for a mild and 
gentle slavery — and to appoint the Israelites, in the latter as well 
as in the former case his executioners, — they [the Israelites] are 
equally guiltless in both.' 

Again — the Israelites were commanded to exterminate the 
Canaanites, — and they did destroy great numbers of them :— Do 
men go about nowadays, killing their neighbors, and plead in jus- 
tification or excuse the carnage of the Canaanites! Or is poly- 
gamy contended for, at the present time, because Abraham, Ja- 
cob and David were polygamists ? Thus, Sir, you perceive that, 
when applied to cases completely analogical, your reasoning leads 
to conclusions against which every well ordered mind must revolt. 
Besides, when we come to examine, a little more closely, the in- 
stance cited by you of Canaanitish bondage — it will be found 
to differ very widely in some of its most important features, from 
negro-slavery as it is seen J;; this country. God specially directed 
the Israelites to hold in gentle servitude, as a merciful commuta- 
tion of punishment, — nations, or parts of nations, who, for their 
iniquities, had been expressly condemned to utter extermination. 
To the people of this country he has given no direction to hold 
their African brethren, [who, so far as we know, are not con- 
demned to destruction] in a bondage so rigorous, so merciless, 
that, whilst it wastes and destroys the body, it tramples under 
foot every energy and kills every hope of the soul.' — I will not 
say, that the whole of the above argument, thrown, for conven- 
ience, into the form of a dialogue, was presented on any single 
occasion during my agency in the South-west. But, it does 
exhibit a fair sample of the reasoning by which christian slave- 
holders quiet their consciences, and satisfy themselves that sla- 



27 

very is right, in their peculiar circumstances. How far it indicates 
the advance of correct sentiments on the subject of slavery 
among slaveholders — and to what extent their excuses and sub- 
terfuges are upheld by colonization principles, as they are actually 
addressed to the community, I shall leave for others to determine. 

Influence of Colonization on the Free People of Color. 

2. — I now propose, in the second place, to speak of the in- 
fluence of the spirit of colonization upon the free people of color. 
It will be admitted, I think, by every one acquainted with its 
history, that it originated in feelings of kindness toward the 
colored people, as well as in prospects of future good to the 
whites. So long ago as 1777, Mr. Jefferson proposed to the 
legislature of Virginia, that all the offspring of slaves, born after 
that time, should be free at their birth — brought up at public ex- 
pense — educated, according to their geniuses, to the arts, sciences, 
or tillage — and furnished with every convenience for emigration 
to such a place as might be provided for them. Mr. Jefferson was 
but a little distance in the rear of the abolitionists of the present 
day — his scheme embracing an immediate abrogation of slavery, 
except in reference to the slaves then in being ; and leaving emi- 
gration — as it would seem right it should be — entirely to the fu- 
ture option of the colored man. It did not wring from the weak 
their 'consent' to removal, by presenting the alternative of 
hopeless slavery on the one hand, and banishment from their na- 
tive land on the other — but left them free, to choose whether they 
would remain here as freemen, or migrate, in the same charac- 
ter, to another home that would please them better. This plan, 
taken in connexion with Mr. Jefferson's sentiments expressed, 
elsewhere, on the subject of slavery, leaves no doubt, that the 
primordia of colonizatio'n, originated in charitable feelings to- 
wards those who were suffering before his eyes ; for, whatever 
may have been Mr. Jefferson's sentiments on other subjects — 
wherever human liberty, or national justice was restrained, he 
was the friend and advocate of all from whom it was withheld — 
be they white or red or black. 

Nor will I attribute to the excellent Dr. Finley, in whose mind 
the whole scheme of colonization first attained its full develope- 
ment, any other sentiments, how much soever they may have 
been mingled with indefensible error and prejudice — than those 
of the most charitable kind toward the free colored class, when, 
in a letter to a friend he says — c The longer I live to see the 
wretchedness of men, the more I admire the virtue of those who 
devise, and with patience labor to execute plans for the relief of 
the wretched. On this subject, the state of the free blacks has 
very much occupio ' my mind. Tbeir number increases greatly 



28 JAS. g. birney's letter. 

and their wretchedness, too, as appears to me. Every thirrg 
connected with their condition, including their color, is against 
them ; nor is there much prospect, that their state can be greatly 
meliorated whilst they continue among us. Could not the rich 
and benevolent devise means to form a colony on some part of 
the coast of Africa, similar to the one at Sierra Leone, which 
might gradually induce many free blacks to go and settle — devis- 
ing for them means of getting there, and of protection and sup- 
port till they were established, &c. &c. 5 ? 

With Dr. Finley, the object was one of a very simple and un- 
mixed character ; one to which no reasonable objection could be 
started, and which, I am inclined to think, would, if confined 
strictly to its proper limits, answer better than the present more 
extended scheme, for building up a Christian colony, and for civ- 
ilizing and christianizing Africa. But in it we see no preten- 
sion to its being the practicable, the only practicable, plan of re- 
lieving our country from slavery. 

Dr. Finley, doubtless, intended, by his scheme, the permanent 
benefit and exaltation of the whole class of free colored people. 
If so, he was led into the error into which, I think he fell, by 
contemplating, with great intensity of feeling, nothing but the 
down-trodden state of that people among us — throwing altogether 
out of the range of his vision the causes which produced it, and 
forgetting the energy of those great principles, asserted first 
by this nation, and even yet received by a great majority of 
it as undeniable and self-evident, and which might still be 
plucked from their drowning state, for its fuller melioration 
and correction here. He supposed, it was easier to remove 
from the country those who were the subjects of this de- 
gradation, than to successfully combat and overthrow the preju- 
dices and false principles which produced it. He fell into a sim- 
ilar mistake with those, who think, that slavery can be extermina- 
ted, by transporting to another country, such of the slaves as may 
be liberated among us, without having first given the death-blow 
to slavery, itself the producing principle, — and forgetting, that the 
few who would be emancipated, under such circumstances, 
would be only the superfluity occasioned by the generative power 
of the principle, and their abstraction but lopping off the dead 
and unsightly branches of the Upas, and giving to it more come- 
liness and vigor. 

Had he been in Turkey, and seen some thousands of christ- 
ians in the same condition as that occupied by the free colored 
people in the United States, rearing their families under all the 
oppressions of that government as they are exercised upon those 
who are even nominally christians, it would have been an act of 
benevolence, to persuade them to remove — albeit, to a wild and 
unsettled coast, — and, of still greater benevolence, to have pro- 



JAS. g. eirney's letter. 29 

vided the means for their transportation. Why? because, neither 
the government of Turkey, nor the moral structure of Turkish 
society contains in it an)' principle acknowledged by all to be ' un- 
deniable,' l self-evident,' — which could be held up and ui i;ed and 
traced in its consequences, before the people and those in power, 
of sufficient efficacy to condemn their practice. They are, both, 
constituted upon the principle, that it is right to persecute a 
'christian dog' — to kick him, spit upon, deny him all legal privi- 
leges, and if he give any, the slightest provocation, to bowstHng 
him. Under such circumstances — where neither the Government 
nor public sentiment acknowledge any principle sanitary and 
corrective of oppression, — efforts tending to any other object than 
the removal of the oppressed from the scene of their sufferings, 
would justly be deemed enthusiastic and absurd. 

Bwt how widely different is the case here! Does the advocate 
of slavery assert, that it is right to oppress a fellow-creature, be- 
cause God has given him a complexion unlike what he has be- 
stowed upon us ? — to subject him to all the weight of the law, 
whilst there is wrested from him all its power for his protection? 
Does the slaveholder say, it is right that slavery, with all its soul- 
killing enormities, as well as with its lesser evils, should be con- 
tinued ? To meet this, with what powerful armor has God 
clothed the American patriot and christian ! .Shall he consent to 
extinguish slavery, by removing its redundancy! — a process that 
may be carried on for a hundred years, and, then, leave our 
Mast state worse than the first.' Or to compass sea and land, 
that he may find some hole or corner for the thrusting away 
of the free colored man, sad, sick at heart, by reason of oppress- 
ion ? — that the slaveholder may repose in all the voluptuousness 
of the most undisturbed quiet? Or shall he not rather raise the 
slaveholder's earth-directed vision to the clear arch of the sky, 
and bid him there read words that are eternal in the Heavens, 
* whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do you even so 
unto them,' with its noble commentary i all men are created equal, 
and have rights that are inalienable, to life, liberty and the pursuit 
of happiness?' Shall he not rely upon the salutary operation of 
great principles sanctioned by God, and declared by man to be 
1 undeniable ;' that are of sufficient efficacy, wherever they are 
ably and honestly urged, for the reformation of every unjust and 
pernicious usage in the land- rather than upon some poor shift, 
some conscience-calming expedient for the present exigency, 
whilst future exigencies — going into eternity, it may be — to which 
it is totally inadequate, are left entirely unprovided for. 

The error of Dr. Finley, and of those who thought with him, 
is to be found in their attempt to convey away the bitter waters, 
whilst they left in full flow the fountain that was continually re- 
newing them ; — in their essaying to remove the free colored 
3* 



30 JAS. g. birney'b letter. 

people from the influence of a false and destructive principle, 
whilst the principle itself was still permitted to exist, vigorously 
producing and reproducing its baleful effects — instead of meeting 
it at its very origin and stopping it there. The wrong practice of 
oppression — the unjust denial to the free colored class of the 
charitable conduct of a refined and christian people, should have 
been boldly met by the right principles of men's equality, and 
their duty to each other as social beings. 

But it was not long before the benevolent object of Dr, Finley 
was greatly perverted, and the benefit that was intended for the 
free colored man — his chief aim was made secondary to the poli- 
cy of sending him away.* At first, the apparent benevolence of 
the enterprise moved the spirits of some of the free people of 
color, and not a few of them were preparing, doubtless, as true 
heralds of the cross, to bless benighted Africa. Emigrants offer- 
ed themselves in greater numbers than the means of the Society 
were competent to send out. Seeing this, the philanthropy of 
the enterprising was thrown somewhat in the back-ground, or 
became, with many, merely auxiliary to the policy of sending out 
of the country the whole of the free colored population. In this 
way, it was recommended to the most determined slaveholder. 
He'was reminded, that the free colored man was a £ nuisance' to 
the white — a source, almost the only one, of disquiet and discon- 
tent to the slave, — that he was boundlessly degraded and vicious, 
polluted and polluting all around him, — and, that the fact of his 

* I am here reminded of the very great resemblance this case bears, in 
its most prominent features, to that of the Indians, who have been moved 
upon, in nearly the same manner, to " consent " to leave their lands within 
the limits of several of the states. To these unhappy people— unhappy be- 
cause cruelly treated by those upon whom they, as children, cast themselves 
for protection — it was urged, that the encroachments and lawlessness of the 
whites would render their situation, whilst they remained near them, too 
grievous to be borne — that, they would be far happier when separated from 
us, in a country entirely under their own control — and, in conclusion, that 
this advice was dictated by humanity — by a pure regard for their ivel- 
fare. What was the Indian's reply 1 " 'Tis true, our situation, owing to 
the causes you have mentioned, is had enough, but is it not made so by your 
negligence of right, and disregard of the most solemn stipulations 1 Will 
you, by your injustice — your fraud — your force, create the necessity which 
makes it expedient for us to remove to a wilderness, and then, by persuad- 
ing us to fly from its destructive influence, claim the praises of philanthro- 
py and humanity 1 Strange reasoning this ! — since it leads to the conclu 
sion, that the greater your friends, the louder will be the plaudits you will 
gather for good will to the poor Indian Where are your treaties, by 
which you are bound solemnly before God and the world to conduct your- 
selves towards us, at least, with justice ? Go, tell your countrymen to re- 
strain their avarice, withhold their force, repress their injustice — purify 
and elevate their morals, and not approach us with the disgusting skeleton 
of policy decked out with the tawdry vestments of humanity. Away with 
your humanity that is based on selfishness, we'll none of it." 



jas. g. birney's letter. 31 

being so, might always remain as strong as it then was for sus- 
taining such an argument, it was asserted with ceaseless repeti- 
tion, that in this degraded state he must continue as long as he 
resided among us — that here his condition was irretrievable, hope- 
less; in fine, it was an c ordination of Providence.' All this was 
surmounted by pceans to our humanity. And the free colored 
man, for his encouragement was told, that the whole field of hon- 
orable ambition lay open before him; that he might, in the land 
of his fathers, engage in the high offices of legislation — in the 
solemn ministrations of the altar — and in laying the foundations 
of a great people, a mighty christian nation, before whose feet the 
countless idolatries of Africa's unnumbered tribes would fall in 
ruins to the ground. 

All this sounds well, — but it will be found, on examination, to 
contain principles at variance with each other and mutually de- 
structive. Let us suppose these motives to be addressed to an in- 
telligent free man of color, would not his train of reflections, most 
probably, be somewhat of this kind? ' I belong, then, to a class, 
which the white man declares to be a nuisance. If this be true, 
what has produced it? His own conduct. What has this been, 
but a course of systematic neglect, contempt, abuse — withholding 
from us every franchise and immunity of the government whose 
tendency, he says, is to elevate and ennoble those who exercise 
them? We were thrown out from the charnel-house of slavery, 
ignorant, unconscious of the want, unable to appreciate the ad- 
vantages of education — our families cut off from all associates, 
except the degraded slave, or the polluted and polluting white: — 
and what has been done for us? Whilst the white man has es- 
tablished, at great expense of life and treasure, schools for the 
Caffre and the Hottentots — for the Indian of Ceylon and the 
negro of New-Zealand; whilst he has his missionary, on the one 
hand, plying with untiring step his course to the summit of the 
Rocky Mountains, and, on the other, scaling the wall of China 
to dechire that Truth which makes men ' free indeed' — what has 
he done, what is he doing, for the class, whose ignorance and 
error must be daily witnessed, and whose wants must be fully 
known? Nothing, nothing, nothing. What confidence, then, 
can I properly repose in a benevolence acting only afar off, whilst 
it neglects so much at hand— An that charity which will despatch 
a band of missionaries to Africa, whilst it will not supply one to 
her sons here, though fainting — perishing for the bread of life ? 
In what manner am I to estimate the sincerity of men — aye, of 
chrislwK men too — who, in one breath, tell me ; their prejudices 
against us whilst here, are insurmountable, but, that they vanish, 
when we are removed from them some six or seven thousand 
miles — that whilst we remain here, religion itself is incompetent 
to destroy them, — but that when it acts across an ocean it pos- 



32 JAS. g. birney's letter. 

sesses wondrous, overmastering potency, for their extirpation 5 
who say, that here, under the restraints of wholesome laws, with 
the presence of the whites to check and control us, we are utterly 
unfit, because of our moral and intellectual depravity, for the en 
joyment of the lowest privilege — yet, forsooth, would fling us, 
with all our stupidity, our inexperience, our vileness and infamy, 
ia one unbroken and reeking mass, upon a distant land, — un- 
checked by wholesome laws or animated by virtuous example — to 
do what? To carry on a system of piracy? — of robbery? — or to 
establish a factory for conducting a commerce in the blood and 
gore and groans '^*our fellow-men? No: it is not in these occu- 
pations we are to toe employed, and for which it would seem, our 
benefactors being witnesses, we are well fitted, but it is — O, won- 
derful adaptation ! to christianize and civilize one hundred mil- 
lions of heathen ! ! 

Again — if we are a nuisance nov), by what necessity are we al- 
ways to remain so? Are we incapable of improvement — impene- 
trable co those great truths by which man's mind is enlightened— 
his heart purified and he made a freeman indeed? This cannot 
be asserted without impugning God's word What, then, will 
make up this everlasting pressure? Prejudice, prejudice — so pro- 
claimed 'before all Israel, and before the Sun!' We have none 
against the whites. Deeply injured, neglected, vilified as we 
have been, we are willing to pass it all by, take a lowly station, 
and cheerfully acknowledge their superiority. But how is this 
temper reciprocated? By still accumulating abuse. They say 
of us, as a class, we are diseased, sick, ready to die, and yet, 
by emigration to Liberia, would they suck from us the most 
healthful blood that circulates in our system. They declare by 
their language — by their lav:s. an inflexible purpose to grant no 
mitigation of our ills, unless we respond harmoniously to their 
policy in sending us away. How then can we in a matter so im- 
portant to us — so far from our homes — so irremediable, if it fail, 
trust to those whose rigor of temper no concession can soften — 
whose selfish policy is the substance, our good but the accident? 

But further, why are we spoken of as a class? why do they 
throw together the good, the bad, the indifferent, and make of 
them one mass, baptized by the name of nuisance, when they deal 
not thus with other men? I do not perceive that men of black 
hair and of light colored hair — of black eyes and blue eyes — of 
low stature and high stature, are spoken of in classes, to which 
any moral or intellectual designation is given. No: each one is 
judged by his own merits — nor are they mixed up with the vices 
and demerits of others to make a foul and unsightly Jump. This 
common— esse and common-charity measure of judgment and 
treatment is all that I have a right to ask, it is all I desire, and 
justice cannot withhold It. 



JA3. g. birney's letter. S3 

But, more than all, we are especially obnoxious to the slave- 
holder. Here is the spring of all this preparation. My fellow- 
man is in bondage — the sight of a freeman of his own color re- 
leased from chains will make the slave more restless under his ; 
and the slaveholder, with his hand on the throat of my father, my 
brother, my sister or my mother, must by all means, be kept tran- 
quil and undisturbed — his property in man must be untouched, 
whilst he is robbing him of the use of the limbs and muscles that 
God gave, and of the daily products of their toil. And this is the 
sum and substance of this mighty charity ! We are to be driven 
from the country as a nuisance — we are to be persuaded, by un 
ceasing reiteration, that such we are now, and so we must remain, 
to all, — but especially to the unrelenting slaveholder. 5 ' O ! my 
soul come not thou into their secret — unto their assembly mine 
honor be not thou united.' 

I will not undertake to decide upon the justness of all these re- 
flections. I only say, they are such as may very naturally be ex- 
pected to arise in the mind of an intelligent free colored person, 
on the presentation of colonizing motives for removal. That 
they are, however, nearly allied to such as are really enter- 
tained by him, we may be led to presume, from the result of col- 
onizing efforts upon the class to which he belongs. In the 
commencement of the scheme, — whilst it was recommended chiefly 
as one of benevolence to the colored freeman and native African, 
it engaged in some small degree, the attention of the colored peo- 
ple in the northern states. But so soon as it was urged as a 
stroke of policy, — and as such, (accompanied with great vilifica- 
tion of the colored people,) pressed upon the Southern slaveholder, 
the whole plan was broken up, so far as they were concerned. 
Benevolent persons, too, among the whites, entertaining senti- 
ments of kindness toward the blacks ; many of whom had sup- 
ported colonization on the ground that it bid fair to confer upon 
them great benefits, so soon as they discovered, that benevolence 
to the oppressed was practically, but the banner on the outer wall, 
whilst the great citadel of the plan was in the policy of removing 
from amongst us a neglected class of men, whom we had branded, 
1 nuisance,' and who were viewed as a hindrance to the peaceful 
perpetuation of slavery, they not only revolted from it, but so 
easy a task did they find it, to expose the repugnancy of the prin- 
ciples upon which it was conducted, that they were enabled, very 
soon, to produce an opinion concurrent with their own, amongst 
all the colored population of the North. 

The free colored people of the South, and of the South-west, 
more particularly of the latter, have, at no time, manifested much 
interest in the enterprise. In Cincinnati, there is, among this 
class, an utter hostility to Liberian Emigration. Their temper on 
the subject of removal, at all, was, doubtless, greatly exacerbated, 



S4 JAS. g. birney's letter. 

by the severe and persecuting spirit, exhibited toward them hi 
1828 — when a strong measure was resorted to with the view of 
compelling them to remove. 

In Louisville, notwithstanding the presence of about one bun 
dred emigrants, who were detained there, for several days, pre- 
viously to descending the river to take passage in the Ajax — and 
a very forcible appeal, made at the same time by a highly gifted 
agent, in behalf of colonization, no effect seems to have been pro- 
duced upon the free colored people of that city. Not one of them, 
so far as I am informed, has, at any time, emigrated to Liberia, 
or signified a wish to do so. 

In New-Orleans, among the same class, if not opposition, thers 
is, I apprehend, a thorough indifference. Here, they cannot bt 
much short of ten thousand. Numbers of them know how to 
read and write, and there are not wanting, those who are edu- 
cated, intelligent and wealthy. Whilst presenting the claims of 
colonization to a very large assembly, that part of the gallery, ap- 
propriated for Sabbath services, to the blacks, was crowded with 
that description of people. I spoke of them as I felt — kindly: 
and of their condition, compassionately. To me it appeared a 
matter of no small importance to the cause of colonization that 
some emigrants should, if possible, be obtained out of so large 
and influential a body as was constituted by the free colored class 
in New-Orleans. Still more important did I consider it, that 
some one or two, of the most intelligent and worthy among them, 
should be persuaded to go out to Liberia, that they might bring 
back a true report of the condition and prospects of the colony, 
which I then thought would be satisfactory to every one else, as 
well as to their brethren in the lower country. With this view, 
through the medium of the newspapers, I gave notice to such of 
them as desired to go out, that their passage, with all necessary 
accommodations, would be furnished gratuitously. So little in- 
terest was excited in favor of the scheme then, and within the 
two or three weeks, during which the whole of the emigrants by 
the Ajax were delayed there, that only one free colored person 
came to converse with me on the subject. He was irresolute at 
the first interview, and he never sought another. 

A reference to recent expeditions will satisfy any one who will 
make it, that the free colored people have almost entirely aban- 
doned the project. The whole number of emigrants sent out in 
twenty-three expeditions was 2,061. Of these, there were slaves, 
613. Compare the proportion of these numbers with that shown 
by subsequent expeditions — say by the four of the year 1833. 
The first [brig American] from Philadelphia, said to have been 
a small one, (the exact number I have not by me the means of 
ascertaining) sailed in May. The emigrants in this instance I 
set down as all free. 



JAS. g. birney's letter. 35 

The Jupiter sailed from Norfolk with fifty emigrants, forty- 
four of whom were slaves. The Ajax from New Orleans with 
one hundred andjijly, of whom at least one hundred and twenty 
were slaves. The Argus from Norfolk with fifty-one, thirty-five 
of whom were slaves. The aggregate number by these expedi- 
tions may be fairly set down at two hundred and sixty , of whom 
two hundred were slaves. 

Such facts, sir, tend to demonstrate the practical operation of 
the principles on which colonization is recommended. How 
much soever they may be cherished by the sincere advocate of 
human liberty, in common with the slaveholder, it is in progress 
to full proof, that they have in them nothing attractive to that 
particular class of people for whose benefit the whole plan was 
set on foot, and as to whom it may be considered as wholly in- 
efficient. — To what extent the transportation of slaves, who are 
compelled to choose between exile and perpetual bondage, is a 
departure from the original purpose of colonization, I do not pur- 
pose here to inquire — but proceed, 

8. To speak upon the 

Influence of Colonization on Africa. 

It is not my intention to discuss this part of the subject at great 
length, but to prove, as briefly as I can from facts, that the pros- 
pect of converting to Christianity and civilizing the heathen of 
Africa, by the direct instrumentality of the colony, is — if not 
wholly — in a great measure delusive. To the many who are led 
mainly by the consideration just mentioned, I trust it will not ap- 
pear unfriendly to the cause of religion itself, when I attempt to 
show that their efforts in this way have little if any tendency to 
promote it As no cause that is substantially a good one ever 
received solid support from an erroneous presentation of facts, 
or from false or unsound arguments, so neither will it elude det- 
riment by the suppression of opposing facts, or of a candid and 
manly examination of its claims. It is for the advancement of 
truth, that I propose to examine the soundness of the position 
taken by colonizationists, that the colony will be the great means 
of Christianizing and civilizing Africa. In one sense this is not 
denied : That the colony will continue to grow in numbers and 
importance, until it may be considered as permanently establish- 
ed ; that it will furnish a footing for missionaries and others, who 
may engage in this work of benevolence : that here in future 
times, as in many of our cities now, the leligious will assemble to 
consult and organize associations for diffusing a knowledge of 
Christianity among the heathen, I shall not for a moment contro- 
vert. What I mean is, that the colony itself, as such — so far 
from aiding, by the fair influence of its religious character, in the 



36 



JAS. 6. BIRNEY'S LETTER. 



conversion of the natives who come within the sphere of its ac- 
tion, will rather operate against their conversion. This position 
will, as I think, be fully supported, not only by the history of alf 
other nominally Christian colonies in modern times, but by facts 
already existing and ascertained, going to prove the unfavorable 
influence of the colony upon the surrounding tribes. 

The discovery of America was made by a man professedly 
and no doubt really a Christian. The country of his birth, and 
that under whose patronage his voyages were conducted, es- 
pecially the latter, were eminently refined, brave and chivalrous. 
The colonies planted by Columbus were made up of men who 
were nominally Christians, and enterprising, nor is it disputed 
that there were among them individuals of decided and deep- 
toned piety. More than this cannot be said of the adventurers to 
Liberia. — And as for the natives, have any ever been found so 
well characterised to win the regards and conciliate the love of 
men, as those described by Columbus in a letter to the King and 
Queen of Spain, as " so affectionate, so tractable, and so peace- 
able, that I swear to your Highnesses, there is not a better race 
of men nor a better country in the world — they love their neigh- 
bors as themselves — their conversation is the sweetest and mild- 
est in the world, and always accompanied with a smile ?" Can 
the imagination bring up before us circumstances more favorable 
than those which were here realized by the colonists, for the ex- 
hibition of the Christian character ? And where, after an experi- 
ment of 300 years, are all these people ? Civilized ? — Christian- 
ized ? Of the South Americans, there are miserable, abject rem- 
nants ; of the Islanders, there is scarcely a human being left, to 
testify to the Christian efforts of this Christian colony. 

Are we sending to Liberia better men — more regardful of jus- 
tice and mercy — or more strongly animated by the Christian 
spirit, than the pilgrim fathers of New England ? Yet, where 
are the aborigines of that country ? Are they Christianized ? 
No : the scorching spirit of colonial Christianity has utterly con 
sumed them. 

In his intercourse with the aborigines of this country, William 
Penn, more fully than any other of the colonial proprietaries, ex 
hibited to their contemplation the lovely portrait of the Christian 
negotiator, moving high above the gross region of subtlety and 
deceit. Notwithstanding this great and attractive example of 
justice and magnanimity, yet do we find in the history of the 
aborigines of Pennsylvania, the same result as in all the other 
colonies — they were either destroyed, or in wretched remnants, 
driven back farther and farther into the wilderness. The great 
majority of the colony possessed but little of the spirit of Penn. 
Nor, indeed, is it to be expected, that adventurers to distant coun 
tries, merely for the sake of gain, (and of this description the 



JAS. G. BIRNEY'S LETTER, 

great body of colonists will always be,) where it is to be acquired 
by commerce with savages, ignorant and unable to appreciate the 
value of their commodities, will fail — forgetful of principle and 
right — generally to seek those advantages in their traffic that 
superior intelligence can so easily secure to them — especially in 
the absence of a well regulated public sentiment, as in older 
countries, to brand such over-reaching with disgrace. Now, sir, 
if all these instances of colonization in modern times, undertaken 
under the most favorable circumstances, and by some of the most 
pious and distinguished men, have utterly miscarried in the work 
of Christianizing and civilizing the heathen, what can be urged to 
encourage the expectation that the colony of Liberia, or any 
other nominally Christian colony, planted on the coast of Africa, 
will be permanently beneficial to the aborigines of that continent ? 

But I am encountered here with an exception to the theory es- 
tablished by these facts : — The European colonists differed in 
color from the natives of countries where they established them- 
selves ; whereas the negro colonist of this country goes to Africa 
with all the advantages of similar color and physical conforma- 
tion. I grant, that this circumstance did at one time appear to 
me entitled to considerable weight ; but the testimony of Govern- 
or Pinney, united to other testimony of the same character, show- 
ing the relation of the colonists and the natives, has very much 
diminished its weight, and furnished, agreeably to my apprehen- 
sion, reasons for believing there are causes as completely repul- 
sive between the native African and the colonist from the United 
States, as any that can be found in color or form. This gentle- 
man, writing from Monrovia, in February last, says — " The na- 
tives are, as to wealth and intellectual cultivation, related to the 
colonists, as the negro of America is to the white man, and this 
fact, added to their mode of dress, which consists of nothing 
usually but a handkerchief around the loins, leads to the same 
distinction as exists in America between colors. A colonist of 
any dye, [and many of them there are of a darker hue than the 
Vey or Dey, or Kroo or Bassa] would, if at all respectable, think 
himself degraded by marrying a native. The natives are, in fact, 
menials, (I mean those in town) and sorry am I to be obliged to 
say, that from my limited observation, it is evident, that as little 
effort is made by the colonists to elevate them as is usually made 
by the higher class in the United States to elevate the lower.' 

The Rev. Samuel Jones, a colored man, and a Baptist 
preacher, sent out by the Colonization Society of Georgetown, 
Ohio, on a visit of exploration to Liberia, speaking on the same 
subject, says — ii I saw in all the schools but one or two natives — 
and none were present the two Sabbaths I preached in the co- 
lony. The natives generally fear the colonists, and they (the 
colonists) say it is necessary that they should, that they may not 
4 



38 JAS. G. BffeNEY's LETTER. 

rise and destroy them. One man, a licensed exhorter of the 
Baptist denomination, went so far as to say the natives ought to 
be slaves, and he debated the subject with me quite warmly. 
In fact, the relation between the colonist and native is very 
similar to that between master and slave." "All the colon- 
ists who can afford it, have a native or two to do their work. 
The natives never go into the house, but always eat and sleep 
in the kitchen. When they go to the door to speak to the 
masters, they always take their hats off, as though they de- 
sired to be very submissive."* 

The Commercial Advertiser of New York, a newspaper 
warmly supporting the cause of colonization, on the arrival 
of the schooner Edgar a few days since from Liberia, says ; 
" All the information we have from the colony, represents 
the pride, luxury and extravagance of those settlers who have 
been prosperous in trade there, as highly reprehensible. 
Almost every family has a number of natives employed as 
native servants, and even among the families of emancipated 
slaves who have been sent there, though themselves entirely 
dependent for their support, yet they are too lazy even to 
bring water; and declare themselves free, and employ natives 
as their servants." 

The Rev. Mr. King of Tennessee, late agent of the Ten- 
nessee Colonization Society, who went out in the Ajax, in 
company with Mr. Jones mentioned above — told me, not long 
since, that the colony had produced so little effect upon the 
costume of the natives, that they were yet to be seen wander- 
ing and lounging in the street, in the state of almost nudity, 
described by Mr. Pinney. 

The same gentleman whilst in Liberia, became acquainted 
with the Reverend Mr. Ca3sar, an Episcopal clergyman, much 
respected. By him he was told, that although the last war 

* The constitution of the colony prohibits involuntary slavery — except 
for crime ; yet, what kind of a barrier does a paper prohibition oppose to 
a vitiated state of public sentiment 1 Is it not a matter that should be 
deeply pondered by Christian slaveholders in our ovrn country, how far their 
example may contribute to bring about and sanction the enslavement of the 
natives by the colonists 1 Is it not probable that the edge of detestation 
©f slavery would be somewhat dulled among them on their recollecting 
that their friends in the United States, looked upon by them, it may be, as 
eminent preachers and Christians, still hold their fellow men in bondage ! 
How many plausible pretexts might be found for turning into a cotton, or 
coffee, or sugar plantation, some half a dozen or more of these nearly naked 
nomadic ladies and gentlemen, that they might be better fed and clothed 
than they could clothe and feed themselves — and have the additional benefit of 
now and then hearing the go?pel preached, to the salvation of their soula ! 
How easily might they fill their mouths with arguments that were formerly 
deemed good for the African slave trade, and now for the domestic slave 
trade, and for the continuance of slavery among us! 



JAS. g. eirney's letter. 39 

(March, 1832) with the natives, in which there were many 
of them killed, was popular, and considered glorious for the 
colony, yet the ostensible cause of it was not the real cause ; 
— and that the latter was to be found in the resentment of a 
keen and active trader by the name of Thompson, originat- 
ing in disappointment at not receiving a due reciprocation of 
presents made by him with the purpose of advancing his 
traffick with the natives.* 

But, Sir, has it ever been known, that Commercial estab- 
lishments have proved to be sources of religious knowledge 
and improvement to the heathen, among whom they have 
been placed ? The colony of Liberia is emphatically one of 
this character — there exists in it, according to all accounts, a 
rage for trade. Let us recur for a moment to the history of 
religious efforts among our neighboring Indians. Who, 
amongst us, would ever think of encouraging a trading station, 
or company of petty shop-keepers, (such as could be induced 
to emigrate for gain) and upholding them, as the best means 
of diffusing a knowledge of Christianity among the Indians, 
as missionary stations ! ! I will venture to say, that among 
the greatest obstacles the true missionary has to encounter in 
recommending " Christ" to our aboriginal natives, is the in- 
fluence, direct and indirect, of such establishments. When 
we consider their object, we cannot be at a loss, for an instant, 
to arrive at this conclusion. It is to supply the wants of sav- 
age life, but more especially the peculiar wants of savage life. 

These peculiar wants are trinkets, baubles, beads, tobacco, 
ardent spirits, fire-arms, powder and ball. It is the gratifica- 
tion of these wants that gives vitality, and their growth that 
gives encouragement to the trading stations. Now, so lo*3g 
as these peculiar wants subsist, savageism must continue — so 
long as they grow, it must also be growing more rude and 
untameable. So superficial is this truth, that no missionary 
station, so far as I am informed, has ever been supplied with 
any of the articles mentioned above, calculated to keep alive 
savage customs. What is the first work of the missionary ? 
Is it not to allure to peace, to stationary life and habits of set- 
tled industry ? If he succeed, he puts an end, in proportion 
to his success, to the sale of arms, powder and ball, whether 
they be intended to kill men, or for hunting. If he inculcate 
abstinence from the use of ardent spirits, he is brought direct- 
ly in collision with the interest of the trader. Should he be 
blessed in his honest labors for the amelioration of savage life, 

* If this be the true account, there was, in the result, a singular retribu- 
tion of Providence. — Thompson was the only colonist who was killed 
in the battle with the natives. 



4(J jas. g. birney's letter. 

it must be almost entirely, by the annihilation of the trader's 
occupation. It would seem strange then, that with experi- 
enced persons, there should, after twelve years disastrous 
trial, too, at Liberia, exist such pertinacity in insisting upon 
the practicability of uniting the trader and missionary — and, 
that there should still be indulged such bloated expectations 
of good to the heathen of Africa, from the instrumentality of 
men who go out [if preachers, so much the worse] with fire 
arms, powder and ball, and rum, in one hand, and the Bible 
in the other. 

The wants of the native African are limited to a little cot- 
ton cloth, trinkets, beads, baubles, tobacco, ardent spirit, 
powder, ball and fire-arms. Francis Devany, who became a 
resident of the colony in 1823, testified before a committee of 
Congress in 1830, that he had acquired property since his 
emigration to the amount of $20,000 — and that a Mr. Waring, 
(if we mistake not, a preacher,) had, as a commission mer- 
chant in Monrovia, sold in one year, goods to the amount of 
$ 70, 000. Now, Sir, even upon the supposition that no other 
goods were sold to the natives, than the probable yearly 
amount vended by these two gentlemen, what awful havoc 
must have been made of the souls and bodies of these poor 
savages ! And when we consider, too, that in this " dreadful 
trade " are engaged professed ministers of Jesus Christ, who 
from their sacred calling must, of course, be most relied upon 
for preaching the gospel to them, and exhibiting, in their own 
conduct, the beauty of the Christian character, it becomes a 
question of tremendous import to all American Christians. 
" Can I, in conscience, give my support and encouragement 
to an establishment, whose ways are present destruction to 
the heathen, in the hope that peradventure, it may become 
hereafter the means of blessing and salvation to them ?" 

But the pernicious consequences of such a state of things, 
are by no means confined to the natives. The " Commer- 
cial Advertiser," tells us that " those who have been most 
prosperous in trade " (in supplying the country with the in- 
struments of death) "are proud, extravagant and luxurious." 
They have reaped their reward, it may be, at the expense of 
the little pittances of the unwary emigrants, who by their rum 
and alluring trumpery, have been made and kept poor. As to 
the condition of the poor, however they may have become 
so, another quotation from Mr. Jones' journal shall inform 
us. '" On the fourth day, Mr. King [Agent of the Tennessee 
Colonization Society] suggested that we ought now to visit 
the poor. We accordingly did so — and of all misery and 
poverty, and all repining that my imagination had ever con- 
ceived, it had never reached what my eyes now saw, and rny 



JAS. G. BIBNEY S LETTER, 4 ' 

ears heard. Hundreds of poor creatures, squalid, ragged, 
hungry, without employment — some actually starving to 
death, and all praying most fervently that they might get home 
to America once more. Even the emancipated slave craved 
the boon of returning again to bondage, that he might once 
more have the pains of hunger satisfied. There are hun- 
dreds there who say they would rather come back and be slaves 
than stay in Liberia. They would sit down and tell us their 
tale of suffering and of sorrow, with such a dejected and wo- 
begone aspect, that it would almost break our hearts. They 
would weep as they would talk of their sorrows here, and 
their joys in America — and we mingled our tears freely with 
theirs. This part of the population included, as near as we 
could judge, two thirds of the inhabitants of Monrovia." 

Mr. Jones had been a slave in Kentucky ; — in a subsequent 
part of his journal he says, " Sooner than carry my wife and 
two sons there to settle, with only what property I now pos- 
sess, I would go back into slavery as a far better lot."* 

* There arc among us, I know, many men of distinguished piety and 
talents — especially in the free states — who have long since lost all confi- 
dence in colonization, as an effectual means of exterminating slavery, or even 
in its persuasive influence over the free colored people to remove themselves 
to Africa — who yet adhere to it as a missionary enterprise. Such, I en- 
treat to consider attentively, impartially — with prayer — the view, imperfect 
as it may be, that I have attempted to give of this part of the subject. In 
the same spirit let them ask themselves — " Is the direction of this matter 
decidedly of a religious character V — " Has the action of the colony upon 
the natives heretofore been such as God uses to bless in the conversion of 
the heathen V — " Is there any reasonable ground to believe that it will be 
such in future V — " Is there not some room to fear that many of the col- 
onists who have left this country with a highly reputable religious charac- 
ter, have fallen back to a baser standard V If an affirmative answer to 
the three first questions should barely preponderate, and there is hope of 
things still better to come, ought it not to be a matter of the most earnest 
consideration, how far even this will justify men of deep-toned piety, whose 
praise is in all the churches, and whose intellectual labors reach the re- 
motest frontier hamlets — in sustaining, by their names and their efforts, a 
scheme that puts at ease the conscience of the slaveholder — that has a ten- 
dency, so far as it succeeds, by removing the greatest impediment to the 
peaceful enjoyment of slave property, to perpetuate the system of slavery — 
a system, that is breaking up the schools and colleges of the South — dis- 
solving its churches, impoverishing the country: giving, with each day of 
its protracted existence, additional strength to every excuse that is now 
made for its continuance, and that must in a few years at most, if left un- 
disturbed, break up the South with overwhelming destruction 1 As long 
as such gentlemen, approval, doubtless most honestly, this supposed 
feature in colonization — step forward, and for this cause publicly recom- 
mend the whole scheme — they are, with triumph, whatever they may in- 
tend, set down by the determined slaveholder of the South as full blood- 
ed colonizationists endorsing his opinions, that slavery now, under existing 
circumstances, is right — that emancipation in the country is out of the 
4* 



42 jas. a. birney's letter. 

Is it not very probable, that those persons who have looked, 
with high expectations, to the scheme of colonization, as the 
best that could be devised for the annihilation of the African 
slave trade, are doomed to suffer utter disappointment ? This 
trade has been carried on since the establishment of the colo- 
nies at Sierra Leone and Liberia, as vigorously as it ever had 
been driven at any former period ; and notwithstanding, it is 
regarded by the laws of the States of Europe, as well as of 
our own country, piracy, and is punishable with death, and 
many of the public ships of these powers, particularly of 
England, are continually cruising in the African seas, inquest 
of slavers, yet, Sir, is this traffic in human flesh carried on 
throughout the whole coast, and to no contemptible extent, 
even in their own colony established for its suppression. This 
fact was fully disclosed, by an inquiry instituted not long since 
in the British Parliament. Nor am I, by any means, sure 
that the result of the same inquiry does not, on very strong 
grounds, implicate some of our own colonists of either directly 
participating in the trade, or else conniving at its existence in 
the neighborhood of Monrovia. May we not be prepared 
to expect this, from the evidence already before the public of 
the entire deterioration of the Christian character, in such of 
the colonists as have been most successful in trade, and their 
utter neglect thus far, of the natives? If men professiug 
Christianity will, at this day, consent to enrich themselves by 
the sale of such vast quantities of ardent spirits as have been 
sold to the natives by church-members in Liberia, their next 
movement will be to sell to the slaver his supplies ; — suspect- 
ing him to be such, yet asking no questions, for who questions 
a customer with a full purse ? The next step will be to assume 
a secret agency for him ; the next, a direct participation in 
the profits connected with the agency ; and lastly, when such 
men by their wealth and influence have moulded public opin- 
ion to sustain their views, and the colony is left to its own 
government ; there will, in all probability, be a shameless and 
open prosecution of the trade in their fellow beings.* 

question ; that rigorous laws, made to wring from the free colored people 
their " consent" to emigrate, are not to be condemned, but rather to be 
winked at. The great mass of men stop not to inquire what nice shades 
of difference there may be among colonizationsts, but who are colonization- 
ists by public profession. This ascertained, they are set down as favoring 
all its gloomy consequences; as the advocate of all its appalling influence; 
as certainly as the moderate drinkers of their one or two daily glasses of 
brandy each, are written down by the opposers of temperance, on their side. 
* John Dean Lake, a witness in the inquiry above alluded to, residing at 
Sierra Leone, says: " Deponent had a mercantile transaction with a Mr. 
Hilary Teague, an American subject residing at Liberia. This Mr. 
Teague is in the habit of purchasing goods in this colony, which he take* 



JAS. g. birney's letter. 43 

It seems to me that any hope, built upon the establishment 
of colonies on the African coast, for the suppression of the 
slave trade, will prove altogether fallacious. It is in opposi- 
tion, wholly, to commercial experience. There is no com- 
modity — if human flesh may be so called — which avarice will 
not supply to a market kept open for its sale. She laughs at 
revenue-laws — at the penalties for smuggling — derides death, 
and the dangers of the deep, — scorns heaven and hell, that 
she may clutch her prey. There is, in my humble judgment, 
but one way of bringing the African slave trade to a termina- 
tion — that is, by closing the market everywhere. 

Conclusion. 

I b ive thus, Sir, — as I trust, without a single thought for 
whicu 1 should reproach myself, or the use of a single word 
which should justly give offence to any one living — stated in 
the foregoing remarks, some of my chief objections to coloni- 
zation : — not colonization as it may be defended, in theory, by 
a dextrous polemic, but as it is, in its practical operations. If 
it be true, that, whilst it professes in itself a capacity for the 
relief of the country from slavery, it has, after seventeen 
years of trial, fair and favorable trial — done nothing that has 
touched the matter ; if it falls in with — though it may not have 
originated — uncharitable feelings, unscriptural and unreason- 
able prejudices, and inhuman laws against the colored popu- 
lation among us ; if it occasions a deterioration of Christian 
character in the great body of those who emigrate — and 
through them, brings the Christian religion into dishonor, 
among the heathen — there is nothing in it, according to my 
poor judgment, that entitles it to the support of the patriot or 
the Christian. Although colonization in the West and South- 
West — as to any effectual future action, is dead — yet its ghost 
is unceasingly beckoning us away from the only course in 
which our safety lies. — Whenever any other plan of relief is 
submitted, colonization leaps in between it and the public 
mind, and pushes it aside. The poet has said " man never is 
— but always to be blessed " — colonization, in substance, says, 

down to Liberia for sale, where a great many of the articles he purchase* 
are in demand. Mr. Teague, in paying Mr. Lake for sony goods, took 
the money from a bag containing about $1,000. The word " Manzanares" 
was marked on this bag. This circumstance struck him, from the singu- 
larity of the word. Deponent has every reason to believe this bag came 
out of this vessel, she having been brought into this harbor subsequently, 
and condemned in the court of mixed commission — where it was proved 
that she had taken in a cargo (slaves) at the Gallinas, [a river making 
the northern boundary of the colonial possessions of Liberia, distinguished 
heretofore, without having yet lost its reputation for the slave trade.]" 



44 JAS. g. birney's letter. 

slavery "never is — but always to be removed." Entertaining 
these sentiments of colonization, I take up with great confi- 
dence, the opinion, that, nothing of real moment can be done 
for our relief from the great evil under which we are slowly 
yet certainly perishing, until this community be utterly divorc- 
ed from colonization in all its parts, and in all its measures. 

Kentucky is, at this time, in a fearful crisis — under a migh- 
ty pressure. She must — without delay — and if she would 
save her life — almost with violence, throw off the incubus 
that is suffocating her to death — or, be content to share, in 
common with the South its sure, its hastening, its disastrous 
fate. Let me present for jour consideration but two or three 
facts : — in 1790 there were in this State more than Jive whites 
to one colored person, in 1830 there were but three whites, and 
a very small fraction, to one colored person. 

In 1800 our whole number was 220,959 
In 1810 " " " 406,511 

Increase 185,552 

In 1820 our whole number was 564,317 
In 1830 " " " 688,844 

Increase 124,527 



Deduct the increase of 1830 from that of 1820 

and there will be a difference of 61,025 

Thus, it appears that, on a population-capital of 564,317, 
there was an increase in ten years of only 124,527 — whilst 
for an equal period of ten years, there was an increase of 
185,552, on a population-capital of but 220,959 — demonstra- 
ting an absolute reduction of increase on the larger capital, 
below the increase on the smaller, of 61,025. During the 
same period — from 1800 to 1830, — the increase of the Blacks, 
taken separately, has been uninterrupted and rapid. From 
1790, when the first Census of the U. S. was taken under the 
law of Congress, to 1830 — a period of forty years, there was 
a gain in the increase of the black population, according to 
their population-capital, over the increase of the whites, ac- 
cording to theirs, for the same period, of more than 59,000 

The process by which this result is produced, I may exhibit 
on some future occasion ; it is yet going on, producing results 
of the same kind with an alarming rapidity. 

In refusing to look at, what is acknowledged on all hands, 
to be an evil — one that is becoming darker, more unwieldy, 
more menacing — and that is in the end, if unremoved, to 
over-master us — there is a want of manhood, which, it is be- 
lieved, eannot fairly be attached to our countrymen. AV 



Lof 



JA6. G. BIRNEY'fc LETTER. 4b 

that is wanting is, that this community come up to the con 
sideration of the subject with kind and charitable feelings — 
that the mass of mind among us be applied to it, not for dissen- 
tion but relief— not for triumph but for truth. In this temper, 
let the widest discussion of the subject be invited — in print and 
out of print— -free, full, liberal, unrestrained, — let there be no 
sympathy with the timid and the slothful, who cry out " let it 
alone, let it alone, it will cure itself," whilst the torpor of ap 
proaching death is beginning to be felt — let associations be 
encouraged, having for their object the concentration of intel- 
lectual effort, and the diffusion of intelligence throughout the 
whole mass of our population. — This will be found, as I ver- 
ily believe, the most effectual method of keeping in check the 
rash and the imprudent — and of drawing out the matured and 
sober views of the patriotic and intelligent of the land. 

Permit me, in conclusion, to say, that the views submitted 
in this communication, are entertained after long and very 
circumspect examination of the main subject to which they 
apply. Born in the midst of a slaveholding community — ac- 
customed to the services of slaves from my infancy — reared 
under an exposure to all the prejudices that slavery begets — 
and being myself, heretofore, from early life, a slaveholder 
— my efforts at mental liberation were commenced in the very 
lowest and grossest atmosphere. Fearing the reaiity, as well 
as the imputation of enthusiasm — each ascent that my mind 
made to a higher and purer moral and intellectual region, I 
used as a stand-point to survey deliberately all the tract that I 
had left. When I remember, how calmly and dispassionate- 
ly my mind has proceeded from one truth connected with this 
subject, to another still higher — that the opinions I have 
embraced are those to which such minds and hearts as 
Wilberforce, and Clarkson's yielded their full assent — that 
the}' are the opinions of the disinterested and excellent of our 
own country ; I feel well satisfied that my conclusions are not 
the fruits of enthusiasm. When I recur to my own observa- 
tion, through a life already of more than forty years — of the 
anti-republican tendencies of slavery — and take up our most 
solemn state paper and there see, that " all men are created 
equal, and have a right that is inalienable to life, liberty, and 
the pursuit of happiness," I feel a settled conviction of mind 
that slavery, as it exists among us, is opposed to the very es- 
sence of our government — and that by prolonging it, we are 
living down the foundation-principle of our happy institutions. 
When I take up the Book of God's love, and there read 
<c whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, dx> ye 
even so unto them" — my conviction is not less thorough, that 
slavery now is sinful in his sight. 



JAS. G. BIRNEY'S LETTER. 



But one word more. The views contained in this letter 
are my own, and they have been the result of my own read- 
ing, observation and thought. I am a member of no anti- 
slavery society — nor have I any acquaintance, either person- 
ally or by literary correspondence, with any of the northern 
abolitionists. — No one, beside myself, is committed by any 
thing I have said. 

With great respect, 

JAMES G. BIRNEY. 
Mercer County, July 15, 1834. 



54 W 



'•. "W : 



^/ 







xs 



>\.i£r. 












.c^ .• t '** **b 





* > n 



1 






<r 






v v 









c fe 



? ^ 







•♦. *+ 



•w 






ip-j'j 




f * 40, • 






A«i 












; W 



• • * A° 



iq. 









^y <^ •" <p .. ^ 



,4°„ u 






* 



*<* 





































•1 %^ -. 



- v - ; • mm m-hm-m: : ■ 

: • ;■:,."■. :.. : ' -;" - •■ ' ; " : : 

;•:■■■! ' •.••.:;■; ■;■;.'■ . ..V. I 'Vl. " . 

.::::•■:'.■ : --: ■ ■■:•■ . • .1 . : •■!:; -. . : • mm 

: , : ,-=■■■' : ;' :mmmmm' ...:■ . 
'■■:/:■•::■:■ ;'-■",:; mmmm^mmmm^m 

" ■ mmm '■■' ■ . ■ :: -; ;: ' : : : ;-':l::\- : : ; T'' ;: :: : ! - 

mmm^mmmmmmmmm-x mm 

:;• ' : ' '.!■ ' ; : ' ■ .;.;; m wm^ 

. .:;■ 7 - ■•' • ■' -■•■• : -■;-- : =.; : 'v: --77/ ■ 

7 7. ' • • . , . ■..;■ ; - •.'■■:•.", ! i 7-, . 7'7;-"7' 

7 . ■;-,' ". . : &m 

77 ■■:::■;■.■■.■■■■■ ,;:k; i?n^ 

• ■ • ■:' 7 7 ', - : -v.!;;::! • . ■■ 

:■"■■' : , ■ :.. - ..".:. .v-: ■ ■ 
■.? : : ': : .v : m 

... ■■■■-■■■-■ ■ :■■■■ ;;■'•■■■■ ■■:■:, ■■■■■ ;:■.., .. 

% mmmm-. ■■.■• • . • --^ ; - 



-.: .. :•■:: 



:7i7SX%-:; 

:•■:' ; ■•■■•■ '■'■ ; . ■ . , ■ ;■ •-.. ■ ■;• ' • ':• .. , ■•.■;: 



MW 






''.:■•■ -'.•'.■ -■■ ■■■ ■ - i ■ •• >'; 

• .:■; i .::.-■ v ■:....■■■ ■. . ; ', :. . : 

■ : ; • . ; : ;.:.! : . : . : ■. • 

• : ''-;''. ■ '"■■/ ■ :■ m; "■ ■■ 

wmmmm^mmmB 

:^m^mwMmmm& : ^ ' 



mm^imM 

■m. 
- ■' ■ 

",V. 

mm 







,.' ■ mmmmmmMsm 



:m:m^Mmmmmm 



